Secret Surrender

By Vivian Vaughan

“An emotionally layered and thoroughly engaging story of love lost and found” in the Old West from the author of A Wish to Build a Dream On (Paperback Forum).
 
The year is 1880, and Molly Durant has fallen on hard times. When her mother dies, Molly is left with a dilapidated boarding house and five siblings, all of whom she is determined to keep together. But with no boarders, and her banker fiancé set on sending her siblings to foster homes, fate seems against her. Then Molly gets an unexpected knock on her door.
 
Standing before her is the man to whom she once foolishly gave her body, the same man who abandoned her: Rubal Jarrett. Or someone who looks like him? The man claims to be Jubal Jarrett, twin brother of Molly’s old lover, here to survey a route for a railroad through the timberland.
 
“Jubal” soon has the boarding house brimming with paying guests. He plans to help her turn her life around. Only then can he leave without a guilty conscience. He will not run out on her again. But as memories of that long-ago night with Molly race through his head, will he finally be able to make amends, or will he get caught in his own trap?
 
“A superbly spun tale of love and desire that will capture your heart from the beginning.” —Paperback Forum
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9781626818569

Book preview

Chapter One

East Texas, 1880

It was a danged fool idea. Rubal Jarrett became more certain of that with every mile he traveled toward the little deep-forest town of Apple Springs. Even before leaving Orange, he had begun to suspect the journey would end, if not in disgrace, certainly in futility. A danged fool idea.

Decisions hatched in drinking sessions generally were. As were decisions spawned from desperation—his desperation to see Molly Durant again; his family’s desperation to draw rein on his bellyachin’ about not being able to get her out of his system.

For Pete’s sake, Uncle Baylor had groaned over his whiskey glass, ride on back into them Piney Woods and take a gander at the gal. See if that one-night fling warped your memory.

Dang it, Baylor. She’d likely run off screamin’ at the sight of me.

There’s a way to find out, replied Jubal, Rubal’s twin brother. Take my job with L&M. Hell, you can smoke out timber thieves same as me. Headquarter at the Blake House in Apple Springs—

Her mama likely wouldn’t even board me, Rubal brooded.

Convince her, Uncle Baylor argued. You’re good at bullshittin’. Less, of course, you jes’ like to bellyache.

Never one to back off from a challenge, especially when his gut was full of tonsil varnish and his heart was broken, Rubal had agreed to head into the deep Piney Woods of East Texas in search of thieves who were wreaking havoc on the finances of Lutcher & Moore Timber Company. In the process he would see for himself if Molly Durant was as sweet and sensuous as he’d thought that hot summer night he spent in her arms.

Moonlight in the Pines, that’s the song they were playing when he and Molly sneaked out of her mother’s boarding house toward the end of a Saturday night dance and headed for the barn, nothing but passion on their minds.

Surrounded on all sides by dense woods, Apple Springs sat that night like a spotlighted stage prop in the middle of a darkened theater. The moon shone down on Molly’s black hair, as Rubal led her—or had she led him?—around the side of the grand old antebellum mansion to the barn at the rear of the property.

They hadn’t discussed what they were doing. It just happened. Earlier in the evening someone had spiked the fruit punch with moonshine, and that probably had something to do with it.

But definitely not everything. The moment Rubal and Baylor stepped into the lamplighted foyer of the Blake House, Molly’s sparkling blue eyes had found his and he was a goner. So he was headed back—fool idea or not.

Reaching Apple Creek, which crossed the only road into town a mile or so south of Apple Springs, Rubal drew up in a clearing beside the ruddy stream. After watering Coyote, his three-year-old line-backed dun, Rubal washed his face in water so red, he half feared it might dye his skin. Without consciously acknowledging his attempt to spruce up, he stripped off his travel-grimed shirt and splashed water over his torso, then settled back against a liveoak to allow his skin time to air-dry. He chewed on a piece of cold salt pork and a hunk of cornbread, purchased that morning from an old man who ran a ramshackle hut he called a hotel in an out-of-the-way clearing in the longleaf forest. After the fare he’d been served since leaving Orange, Rubal’s mouth fairly watered for some of the Widow Blake’s chicken an’ dumplin’s. The very thought of those fluffy dumplin’s renewed memories sweeter than hard rock candy.

Buttoning on a clean blue chambray shirt that reminded him of Molly’s eyes, he ran fingers through his brown hair, tightened the cinch on Coyote, and stepped into the saddle with more enthusiasm than he’d felt in a long time. Anticipation had been building inside him for days. By the time he rolled out of the rancid hay in that old barn this morning, he was hard-put to keep a grin off his face.

A forest of towering loblollies, yellow pines, liveoaks, and other hardwoods banked the red-rutted wagon road he followed. Their branches met overhead in a continuous green canopy, which hugged the road like a vast tunnel. Skeins of honeysuckle and other vines matted the tree trunks, and here and there red trumpet flowers blazed among the various shades of green. Now and again a single majestic dogwood punctuated the scene; its white flowers sprouted from stately branches as though an offering to the gods.

The heady fragrance of honeysuckle, pine leaves, and numerous plants Rubal couldn’t put a name to, combined with the humus in the muggy air to suffuse him with a poignancy he hadn’t experienced in at least a year. His body reacted in all the usual places, and a song erupted from his lips. Before he knew it, he was singing to the faraway branches, to the tiny dot of black at the end of the tunnel of green, to the clearing he had yet to reach. The clearing where the little community of Apple Springs had sprung up beside a sawmill on the Angelina River.

Love me in the moonlight, he sang, …in the moonlight in the pines. He wasn’t sure of the words, but they seemed to fit the situation.

Recognizing his giddy state for what it was, he was nevertheless unable to curb his enthusiasm. Visions of Molly Durant as he had last seen her plagued him—curly black hair tumbling about her pixy face, a couple of strands sticking to her damp cheeks and well-kissed lips, a few pieces of straw in her hair. But it was her eyes that had haunted Rubal this past year—sparkling blue eyes, sensuous and dreamy blue eyes.

Blue eyes, beckoning him, entangling him, as his hands had tangled in her black curls. Blue eyes that had caused him to jump up and run. Run as fast as he could, away from the Blake House, away from Apple Springs, away from Molly Durant, from an animal-like fear of being ensnared, captured, tied in a knot of marriage and children and responsibilities that he figured any sane man would shy away from.

But he hadn’t been able to outrun visions of Molly’s blue eyes. For a year now, they had haunted him. He couldn’t drown them in whiskey, drive them away with whores, or sweat them out on a long trail drive.

For somewhere along the way Molly’s blue eyes had ceased to be dreamy and had become accusing. Accusing him of running away, of taking her innocence and leaving her alone.

He tried to console himself that she had been an eager participant in their lovemaking; he tried to assure himself that a girl as lovely as Molly had her share of suitors, even in an out-of-the-way place like Apple Springs; he tried to convince himself that she hadn’t sat home pining for him.

But for some reason none of his arguments worked. His family teased him from the first. Finally, they lost patience with his insufferable bellyaching. Jubal tried to talk sense into him:

Hell, Rube, Uncle Baylor was there, too. Could have been him. Didn’t you say the punch was spiked with rot-gut? Why, any man there could have taken that girl to the barn. Baylor, you, anyone.

Somehow the idea of anyone else spiriting Molly off to the barn hadn’t sat too well with Rubal. Baylor Jarrett, least of all. As much as he loved his hell-raising uncle, Rubal couldn’t see Molly dancing the night away with him or any of those other heathens present. To this day, he got riled just thinking about her running off to the barn in the throes of passion with anyone other than himself.

Which didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense. What did he expect, her to remain a spinster the rest of her life? The very idea was ludicrous, given the fact that she was just about the prettiest girl he’d ever laid eyes on. Why, her spirited nature and uninhibited passion could drive a man wicked just thinking on them.

Given his family’s penchant for funnin’ a feller, combined with his own nagging conscience and overtaxed libido, Rubal knew he’d been a sorry example of mankind the last year. Then Lutcher & Moore, the largest timber company in East Texas, hired his brother Jubal to head into the Piney Woods and round up some timber rustlers. L&M was experiencing a rash of timber thefts on land they owned up and down the Angelina, Sabine, and Neches rivers. In desperation, they turned to the Texas Rangers for help. Jubal, who had joined the Rangers after their older brother, Carson, dropped out to marry a pretty little filly from south of the border, took one look at the map Mr. Lutcher and Mr. Moore had drawn of their operations and decided this job would be the answer to Rubal’s problems.

Go back. Board at the Blake House. Bring that timber-theft gang to justice. By then you’ll know whether the flesh-and-blood Molly Durant is as desirable as that girl you can’t get out of your dreams.

Although Rubal tried to deny it, the idea was more than appealing. The only word he’d had about Molly in the last year came five months after he ran out on her. Uncle Baylor had occasion to pass through the Piney Woods, and the report he brought back relieved Rubal’s most worrisome fear at the time: that Molly had conceived his child that night in the barn.

Healthy and spunky as ever, Uncle Baylor reported.

Healthy?

Uncle Baylor shifted his wad of tobacco from one cheek to the other, gathered a mouthful of spittle, then shot a stream of brown liquid to the side. Skinny as a rail, same as before. Uncle Baylor hee-hawed, and Rubal turned red. He hadn’t intended to divulge the exact nature of his and Molly’s tryst, but as Uncle Baylor suggested, Would’ve had to be ignorant as a pine stump these last few months not to see what happened before you hightailed it out of Apple Springs, leaving me to eat your red dust.

So Molly wasn’t pregnant. Neither had she married, according to Uncle Baylor. But that was seven months ago. Anything could have happened in seven months.

Rubal began to worry. The song died on his lips at the thought of riding up to the Blake House and seeing Molly with some backwoods husband, her belly swollen big as an East Texas watermelon. By the time he reached the edge of town, he considered turnin’ tail and runnin’.

But he had already done that once. This time, if for no other reason than to prove to himself that he was man enough to do it, he intended to ride this critter to the finish—win, lose, or draw.

The town hadn’t changed much in a year. One double-rutted red clay road, intersected by single roads here and there. The commercial side of the street rose to the east on a knoll of grassless red clay; to the west, the residential side sat on lower ground. Most of the businesses had a well-aged look to them. Their signs were faded, their fronts weathered. The smithy and livery stable in the first block didn’t even have a sign, but, of course, none was needed. Osborne’s Mercantile, and Crockett Butcher Shop shared a block and an extended boardwalk. The two newest buildings sat apart from the others, up a side street behind the Dew Drop Inn Saloon: the L&M Timber office and, next door to it, the Apple Springs Bank. Another block down, Rubal glimpsed the steeple of a white clapboard church, stark and welcoming against the backdrop of green pine.

The west side of the nameless main street consisted of a row of pineboard houses. Neatly kept for the most part, each house had its own barking dog and solemn occupant, who stood on the front porch and stared, unabashed, at the stranger who rode down their street.

To his right, merchants, called by the yelping dogs, stopped work to watch Rubal pass in front of their boardwalks. A few of the dogs broke with local custom and ran out to greet him with nips at his heels. Coyote warned them off with a swish of his black tail.

Other than that, no one spoke or otherwise hailed him. Lack of a welcoming party didn’t come as a surprise. The isolation of Piney Woods towns gave folks the right to sit back and squint real hard at a stranger, any stranger. No one rode through Apple Springs. Anyone who came to town did so with a purpose. And until that purpose was known, local wisdom held it best to keep one’s distance.

Understandable as their aloofness was, however, combined with the solitude of being completely surrounded by dense forest, as Rubal rode through town, he was beset by the uncomfortable feeling of having been dropped into a den of angry rattlers. His body tensed involuntarily against the unfounded, yet perceived, threat. He suddenly entertained the uneasy notion that everyone in this town recognized him for the love-’em-and-leave-’em scoundrel who had dallied with one of their maidens and left her, like a thief in the night. Preposterous as that was, it nevertheless added to Rubal’s growing hesitancy to face Molly after a year’s absence.

Then he arrived, although at first sight, he didn’t recognize the Blake House. The once-grand old house sat at the far end of town, perched on the highest knoll for miles around. Rubal rode toward it, his anxiety building by degrees.

It was a large house with two stories and pillars framing a deep porch on three sides. If memory served him, Molly’s grandfather built the house before the War Between the States. He seemed to recall her saying that the land the town was built on had been one of her grandfather’s cotton fields. The lack of slave labor after the war shrank the cotton market to the extent that folks could hardly make a living farming. Acres of cotton land in the Piney Woods had by now been reclaimed by the forests around them. In her final days, Molly’s grandmother had turned their spacious home into a boarding house. Her daughter, Molly’s mother, learned to clean house and cook. Molly had always known how to work.

Drawing rein at the hitching rail, Rubal’s anxieties gave way to incredulity. Had he imagined the grandeur of the place? Or had the music, the liquor, and the passion in Molly’s eyes dimmed his to the state of general disrepair? He sat his horse, gaping at the signs of neglect: The house was in dire need of whitewashing; several shutters hung by single hinges; the front yard was overgrown with weeds and vines; half the top porch step was gone, and when the screen door burst open, it squawked so loudly Rubal jumped in his saddle.

A tall man stomped out the door. About Rubal’s age and height, he was dressed for the city—to Rubal’s eyes, leastways—in black breeches, stiff-collared white shirt, and fancy waistcoat. A black jacket was slung over his shoulder. He carried a narrow-brimmed bowler that would do absolutely nothing to protect its wearer from the elements, which was what Rubal had always figured a man’s headgear was all about.

A slight woman wearing faded gray calico and a large white apron followed the angry man onto the porch. Rubal squinted, trying to decide whether the woman could be Molly. If so, she had taken to severely braiding her hair: tight black braids wrapped around the top of her head like a crown. Like the hair style of an old woman, he corrected. If this washerwoman was Molly Durant, Rubal figured his dreams had hog-tied his brain.

The man skirted the broken step, calling over his shoulder. You’re being bull-headed, Molly. There’s no sense in holding onto that timberland and you know it. It’s worthless. Turning, he shook his hat at her. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll let L&M take it off your hands while they’re still willing to.

Molly clamped fists to her hips, accentuating her small waist. Rubal exhaled pent-up breath, relieved, albeit a joyless sort of relief. Molly might not be carrying this citified son-of-a-biscuit-eater’s child, but from the sound of things she could well be married to him. The discrepancy between the way the man was dressed and the run-down appearance of both Molly and the Blake House stupefied Rubal. Anger, as potent as rattlesnake venom, simmered in his gut.

I’m not selling, Cleatus, Molly was shouting.

Shouting, Rubal thought, when for a year her soft voice had whispered sensuously through his dreams.

That land is back-up,—she was still shouting—for my brothers—and for Lindy.

Rubal watched the man called Cleatus square his shoulders. The feller must have lowered his voice, because Rubal couldn’t hear his words. Molly’s response, however, came clear as a dinner bell. You can tell Prudence Farrington to stay out of my business.

My mother had your best interest at heart, Molly. Both of our best—

"Your best interest, maybe. Certainly not mine. Nor my brothers’ or sister’s."

Humph! Swiveling on a thin-soled boot, the man stomped down the packed-earth walkway, his mouth set in angry defiance, his straight brown hair flying to each side, until he clamped his bowler over it. He brushed past Rubal with only a glancing frown.

Rubal turned back to Molly. She glared after Cleatus. Rubal dismounted and hitched his reins over the worn post, wondering whether he hadn’t awakened in the middle of a dream. If so, this one was definitely a nightmare. Caught up in their argument, neither Cleatus nor Molly had taken note of his arrival. He might as well have been a specter, forced by the Man Upstairs to watch Molly’s life fall apart.

Just as he reached the open gate, the screen door squawked, then slammed again. This time a gangly, blond-headed boy of twelve or so raced across the porch, deftly leaped the broken step, only to be caught up short by Molly, who reached a hand and grabbed his shirtsleeve.

Not so fast, Travis. You haven’t chopped wood for supper yet.

I’m going to sweep the schoolhouse. Travis wriggled to escape Molly’s grasp, but she pulled him back to the porch. He stood eye to eye with her, fidgeting, twisting a brown cap in his hands impatiently. I’ll do it later.

Later you have to milk Old Bertha.

Travis’s hands stilled. He glared at Molly a moment longer, then jerked away, leaping the broken step again. At a safe distance he turned and hollered. You oughta listen to Cleatus, Molly. Let Master Taylor adopt me.

Molly had made an attempt to recapture the boy, but at his words, she stopped short. One hand flew to her chest, where she gripped her white apron bib in a fist. Rubal watched her face stiffen with emotion. From the distance he couldn’t tell whether she was angry or hurt. He figured it was likely a combination of the two.

From the sound of things he had arrived at an inopportune time. Without being privy to details, the various arguments didn’t make much sense. He recognized the boy Travis from his last visit to the Blake House—one of Molly’s brothers. But who the hell was Cleatus? And what business was it of his whether Molly sold her timberland? Or what business would a Master Taylor have adopting Travis?

That wasn’t all that didn’t make sense. The house was falling apart and Molly looked and sounded as though she were, too.

Travis sprinted off across the yard at an angle that bypassed Rubal, who again entertained the notion that he might have fallen into Apple Springs from on high. No one seemed able to see him. Travis jumped the picket fence without breaking stride, shirttail flying from the sides of his overalls.

Lost in thought, Rubal’s gaze followed the boy in his race down the street. When he looked back at Molly, she was sitting on the porch, her face buried in her apron. Her shoulders trembled. His heart lurched to his throat.

Stepping forward, he moved up the path, where weeds had worked their way around the edges of the hard-packed earth. A few scraggly rose bushes confirmed his memory, but they were dying from lack of care. What the hell had happened around here in the year since he’d danced with Molly—and loved her? And left her?

Molly didn’t see him until he stopped on the path directly in front of her. While he stood there, awkwardly searching for words of greeting, she glanced up. Recognition dawned on her pixylike features. Recognition, followed by an expression of utter shock, which further stilled his lips.

Her blue eyes opened wide. Tears glimmered on their surface. He wanted to touch her, to comfort her, or at least to offer her a smile, but she looked as though she were staring at a ghost.

He motioned aimlessly with his Stetson, slapped it against his thigh. Howdy…uh… He cleared his throat, tried again. Howd—

YOU! Molly’s tone was one he reserved for a rattlesnake sighting. Anger contorted her face. Before he could think of a reply, she jumped to her feet and raced to the door. When she returned, it was with a double-barreled shotgun aimed at his midsection. Her earlier dejection had hardened into an expression of fury. He recalled complaining to Uncle Baylor that Molly might turn tail and run at the sight of him. Given the choice, he figured he’d welcome such a reaction about now.

Get off my property, Molly instructed in a no-nonsense tone he was tempted to obey. As though attacking, she pressed forward, shotgun held steady.

Stunned by this reception, Rubal backstepped off the porch, remembering just in time to leap over the broken step. He landed in the pathway on both feet, wobbly but upright. His consternation mounted.

Wordlessly, Molly followed, still waving that shotgun at him. He took another step backward, holding up both hands to fend off her attack. What the—? Didn’t she recognize him for Pete’s sake?

Her next words answered that question. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I hop into bed with you again, Rubal Jarrett! Now get out! Get off my property and don’t ever come back!

Rubal put a bit more distance between them. He’d figured she might not be too happy to see him, but he would never have taken her for the shootin’ kind.

Her blue eyes could have been forged from ice. Gone was any trace of her earlier tears; gone, all signs of dejection. Molly Durant was mad. Fighting mad. And she had gotten the drop on him.

Go on, get out. I don’t have all day. There’s work to be done around here.

He glanced from side to side, taking in the house and grounds. There surely was that. He could help her straighten things up—if she let him hang around. But she was mad as a hornet, and he could tell right off that she didn’t intend to give him the time of day, much less a chance to explain—or to make things up.

If she ran him off he would never get a chance at either. He cringed, thinking what Jubal and Uncle Baylor would have to say about this. He’d never live down being run off by a shotgun-wielding former lover. That idea triggered Rubal’s stubborn streak.

Wait a minute, ma’am. There’s been some mistake.

Molly glared, not in the least interested in anything he had to say. She shoved the shotgun a notch closer.

I’m Jubal Jarrett, he explained quickly. Not that no-’count brother of mine.

She cocked the first barrel of the gun. For a small thing like herself, she surely could hold that big gun steady.

Rube would’ve mentioned me, he offered. Us bein’ twins an’ all.

He mentioned you and all his other kin. None of you are welcome at the Blake House. Now get out of here, she repeated. Her voice didn’t tremble a bit when she said it.

Wait a minute. Let me explain. I’m here on business. For L&M. I need to rent a room for a few days. He glanced around again. I take it you’re not full up.

Molly’s squint didn’t relax one whit, nor did her hold on the shotgun. We don’t rent to loggers. Her frown would’ve wilted roses, if there’d been any left along the path. Or to Jarretts, she added.

Rubal ran fingers through his hair. Golly, ma’am. I can see my brother must have acted his usual fool self and made a terrible impression for the family. He paused to see how she took that. Please accept my apology for anything that scoundrel Rubal might have done. I’d be mighty proud if you’d let me hang around and mend the family name.

You couldn’t mend your family name with a golden needle and silver thread. She motioned again with the shotgun before cocking the second barrel. Rubal felt his midsection quake. Get out, she ordered again, like he was no more than a mangy cur, which comparison he was beginning suspect might hold more truth than not. Get.

Fact is, ma’am, I’m hard up for a place to stay. An’ I’m no logger, I’m—

You’re a Jarrett.

He straightened a notch. Perhaps he should take another tack. An’ proud of it, ma’am. You ain’t no saint yourself, judgin’ a whole passel of men by the actions of one who’s crazed.

He watched her anger cloud with doubt. Crazed?

The word was spoken in a softer tone than before, giving Rubal enough cause for hope that he dropped his hands to his sides. Solemnly, he nodded to confirm his assessment of Rubal Jarrett. Danged if he wasn’t becoming more convinced by the minute of the veracity of it.

If it’d make you feel any safer, I’d be willing to bed down in the barn.

The instant the word barn left his mouth, Rubal knew he had said the wrong thing. He saw it in her eyes. Mentioning the barn brought the same thing to her mind that it did to his. But there was no hint that she recalled that night with any kind of longing, other than a hankerin’ to tack his hide to the barn door.

I’m here on official business for Mr. Lutcher and Mr. Moore, he explained, glad to have some small piece of truth to impart after that bold-faced lie. Scoutin’ out a rail line. He wondered just where official lies fell in the scheme of truth-telling. Sooner I get it done, the sooner the railroad’ll bring folks through here. Who knows they might even want to put a Harvey House in your downstairs— He stopped abruptly, realizing he shouldn’t give away the fact that he had ever set foot on this place before.

‘Course I could always camp out in the woods. He motioned aimlessly. But it might not seem dignified enough, a representative of L&M’s head office, sleeping on his saddle an’ all. Might hold up the rails.

He watched her closely while he rambled and could tell she was only half listening. The sight of him had shaken her to her toes, that was obvious. And although seeing her had done the same to him, he was fully aware that their two reactions were as opposite as daylight and dark.

Even with her hair pulled taut, her dress faded, and her eyes fighting him, Molly Durant was as handsome as he remembered. And Rubal decided then and there that, if he never did anything else in his life, he was going to make things up to her. Somehow, someway, he would make amends for using this spitfire of a girl like a common whore.

Not that it had been that way at the time. It hadn’t. He and Baylor had come over from Lufkin, where they’d driven a herd of cattle for a logging operation, to attend a Saturday night dance at the Blake House. Rubal and Molly had been attracted to each other from the moment he stepped through the door and saw her carrying a punchbowl that was nearer her size than not, toward the lace-bedecked table.

Not waiting to be coy, he’d gone straight over and taken the load from her, introducing himself across the bowl of sloshing yellow punch. After that they danced the night away. Every time someone else cut in, before the tune ended, Rubal managed to take her back. Something instantaneous and magical had sparked between them; something more intoxicating than the liquor some feller had used to spike the punch. Danged if he couldn’t feel it yet, that spark. He shifted his feet on the hard-packed earth.

Obviously, Molly hadn’t taken to the one-night stand. And why in heaven’s name had he expected her to? Even though she had been more than a willing partner, he had been grown at the time—twenty-seven years old—and more experienced. He shouldn’t have let things get out of hand. Seeing her now, looking more like forty than the twenty-one he knew her to be, his heart ached for the hurt he’d caused her. At the same time, he knew he would be hard-pressed not to make the same sweet mistake again, given the opportunity.

Which didn’t appear to be in the stars at the moment. Cursing himself for a lying fool, Rubal dug in his pocket and withdrew a piece of folded paper that bore the impression of his rump, since he’d been sitting on it for four days now. He offered it to her, silently thanking his lucky stars for this, the first bit of luck he’d had on the entire trip.

The orders from L&M convinced her, of course. They were made out to his brother, Jubal, and neither he nor Jubal had taken time to inform the company of the switch before he left town. Jubal agreed to take care of that little task after Rubal left for Apple Springs.

Even seeing the name Jubal Jarrett on the work order, however, Molly still wasn’t sold on taking him on as a boarder.

I’ve got cash, he added, digging again. This time he produced a wad of bills. L&M paid in advance for expenses.

It was the money that won her over, not his charm, nor even his lies, Rubal knew. Following her into the foyer of the big old house, which he had dreamed about in minute detail for a year now, he wondered whether he would ever be able to pull off such a ruse.

The idea left him feeling as jittery as a treed coon with a pack of hounds baying for his carcass. When Molly discovered his deception, he would have one more black mark against him. But it had been the best he could come up with on the spur of the moment. Other than stepping back in his saddle and leaving town.

And leaving hadn’t been an option, not from the moment Molly charged out that squawking door, shouting after that fellow called Cleatus. Rubal knew then he couldn’t leave until he discovered what had happened at the Blake House this past year, while he rode light in the saddle, dreaming sensuous dreams about a passionate and carefree girl named Molly Durant, whose lips were as sweet as Piney Woods honey.

Chapter Two

Three dollars a week and meals. You eat what we prepare, when we prepare it.

Molly stood in the doorway of the second floor room to which she had led Rubal. All the way upstairs she chastised herself for allowing him to stay. But the money had convinced her; she needed the money in the worst way.

She watched him cross the room. He tested the mattress with one hand, stopped at the window, lifted the muslin curtain, and stared into the backyard. He was definitely a Jarrett: tall and lanky, thick brown hair and sun-browned skin, except for the strip of white halfway up his forehead, where his Stetson rode. Chambray shirt and tight-fitting denims…Rubal or Jubal, he made her heart beat as fast as a sawmill engine. Rubal or Jubal, her brain seemed incapable of making the distinction.

Breakfast’s at six, dinner at noon, supper at six, she continued. Dinner bell rings at a quarter of. If you’re not at the table before grace is said, you don’t eat.

Fine, he mumbled without turning around.

"We clean the rooms every day;