“Lured him?” Will muttered from just behind Pete.
Pete raised his hand to stop Will from speaking further. Matters had just turned serious. Too serious to play word games. “What exactly are you suggesting, Mrs. Johnson?”
“Oh, Mr. Benjamin. I’m not blaming you for the incident in your cellar. I know how vulnerable your terrible loss has made you.” She patted his arm in an odd show of sympathy.
Pete yanked out of the woman’s reach. If he wasn’t mistaken, Mrs. Johnson had just blamed the entire “incident” on Rebecca Gundersen and had given him atonement because he was still grieving his dead wife and child.
Could the woman’s reasoning be that skewed? “Let me repeat. I dragged Miss Gundersen into the cellar. Our seclusion was completely innocent.”
Mrs. Johnson waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “You don’t need to defend your actions to me. It’s quite understandable that you would fall for the wiles of that…immigrant.”
“Immigrant? You’re judging Miss Gundersen simply because she was born in a different country?”
“Well, you have to admit the woman is different from the rest of us.” She cast a sly glance to the front of the store, smiled at her two allies and then leaned across the counter. “We all see how she sashays around town, batting those long eyelashes at every man in sight. Why, she doesn’t even wear a bonnet like a decent woman.”
For one black moment, Pete was tempted to reach out and shake some sense into the woman. “You dare to—”
Will cleared his throat, cutting Pete off in midsentence.
Losing his train of thought, Pete cast his friend an annoyed look. “I told you to stay out of this.”
Will gave his head one hard shake. “Think before you speak,” he warned.
Pete’s jaw tightened.
It was wise advice. Nearly impossible to put into action.
Taking a moment to calm his temper, Pete called to mind a verse from the book of James about the evils of a gossiping tongue. The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity…
For Rebecca’s sake, Pete needed to extinguish Matilda Johnson’s gossip before it spread any further.
Placing both palms on the counter, he leaned forward and locked gazes with the odious woman. “You will not share what you heard about Miss Gundersen and me in my storm cellar. The gossip stops now.”
Her eyes widened, then narrowed as the woman pursed her lips. “You can’t order me to be silent about something like this. We both know that no innocent woman would spend time alone with an unmarried man in a storm cellar. Tornado or not.”
That did it. Pete’s patience snapped. He forgot all about holding his tongue, all about thinking before he spoke. Instead, he focused on the one solution that would salvage an innocent woman’s reputation.
“You will no longer speak about my future wife with so much as a derogatory word or an ugly insinuation ever again.”
“Your wife?”
“That’s right. I’m marrying Rebecca Gundersen as soon as I can make the arrangements.”
The woman’s gasp was all the response Pete needed. He turned to go, then stopped himself after only two steps.
“In case there’s any doubt in your mind,” he shot over his shoulder, “you have my permission to share the happy news of my upcoming nuptials with any wagging tongues you choose.”
The woman’s sputtering was drowned out by Will’s laughing remark. “Clearly, some people never change.” It was anybody’s guess whether Will was speaking about Pete and his rash tongue, or Mrs. Johnson and her gossiping one.
Finished with the lot of them, Pete strode toward the front door. He had the presence of mind to nod at the other two women gaping at him. “Good day, ladies.”
One of them squeaked out a response, but they both gave him a wide berth. That suited Pete fine. Just fine.
The windows rattled in their casings as he slammed the door shut behind him. A sense of urgency had him increasing his pace along the sidewalk.
He figured he had ten minutes, maybe less, to locate his bride-to-be and tell her they were getting married before the rumor of their impending nuptials made it to the boardinghouse ahead of him.
Anger might have driven his words, but Pete had no doubt marriage was the right course of action. Even if pledging his life to the pretty Norwegian was a betrayal to Sarah’s memory, Rebecca Gundersen deserved the protection of his name. Maybe then the people in High Plains would start treating her with the respect she deserved. He’d worry about the repercussions to his own life and Sarah’s memory later.
Of course, Rebecca had to agree to marry him first.
Not that she had much choice.
Pete had just added enough fuel to Matilda Johnson’s fire to turn it into a raging inferno.
There was no turning back now.
Chapter Two
“Why in the world would Matilda Johnson order you out of her store?” Emmeline Logan asked, hands on hips, blue eyes flashing. “Please, tell me it’s not as bad as it sounds.”
Afraid of what might spill from her mouth, Rebecca considered her words carefully. Although it had been less than an hour since she’d left the mercantile, she was sure the talk had begun about her and Pete. There was no way a woman like Matilda Johnson would hold her tongue for long. More likely, she would spread her gossip with the ugliest spin possible and as quickly as she could.
Needing a moment to gather her thoughts, Rebecca glanced out the kitchen window of the boardinghouse. She hardly noticed the clear rays of sunshine beaming across the chewed-up backyard, or the gaping holes that had once housed trees.
“Well?” Emmeline asked.
Rebecca drew in a quick breath and returned her attention to her friend. “Apparently, Matilda Johnson thinks that I lured Pete into his storm cellar during the tornado for unseemly purposes.”
“No.” Shock leaped into Emmeline’s eyes. “She didn’t actually say that.”
“She did.”
Emmeline sank into the chair behind her. “Why, that’s…awful.”
Until she’d seen the outrage on her friend’s face, until she’d heard the appalled disgust in Emmeline’s voice, Rebecca hadn’t realized how much she’d needed an ally. “It is rather awful, isn’t it?”
“Please, sit down.” Emmeline gestured to an empty chair facing her. “You must tell me everything that woman said, and then we’ll determine what to do next.”
With the bread dough rising and the pies she’d made for lunch baking in the oven, Rebecca wiped her hands on her apron and did as her friend requested. It would be nice to share her burden with someone willing to listen to her side of the story before making judgments.
“All right, start at the beginning.” Emmeline’s foot drummed out an impatient tap, tap, tap on the floor. Rebecca tried not to sigh. She recognized that expression on her friend’s face. Emmeline was about to take charge of the situation, just as she had with her own family after the tornado had hit their wagon train and stranded them in High Plains. Even before her father’s death in the storm, Emmeline’s mother had alternated between timidity and illness, leaving Emmeline in charge of her three younger siblings.
No wonder Emmeline glared at her with all that determination. It was just a part of who she was as a woman. Unfortunately, no matter how hard Rebecca thought over her words, she knew her friend wasn’t