“Shit, Ace, you might as well call Petunia Hell’s Eight and get it over with.”
“That will never happen.”
The look Caden shot him was almost as pitying as Maddie’s. “Uh-huh.”
Their knowing expressions were almost as annoying as Petunia’s tendency to gather enemies in her wake. The longer Petunia stayed in town, the more her problems were going to become his, because Caden was right, he couldn’t leave her to whomever. She might be a pain in the ass, but in an odd way she’d become his pain in the ass. That being the case, she needed to get on that stagecoach. For both their sakes.
Down the street at the church, people were beginning to meander free of their socializing. Petunia disappeared into the schoolhouse. “Somebody’s got to rein that woman in.”
“I vote for you.”
It was his turn to say, “Uh-huh.”
“It’s not like she’s going to be around much longer,” Maddie argued. “Just as soon as she gets the money for a coach ticket, she’s moving on.”
“She’s been saving for that ticket for a long time,” Caden interjected.
Yeah, she had. And she still wasn’t gone. Mighty suspicious that. “You sure she’s planning on moving on?”
Maddie suddenly became all business, straightening her apron and smoothing her hair. “Looks like customers are heading this way. Time to get busy.”
The back of Ace’s neck tingled. Maddie was not the fussing type. Especially when it came to business. She was up to something. He looked at Caden. Caden shrugged and looked at his wife.
“Out with it, Maddie.”
She sighed and dropped the pretense. “It’s not that Petunia doesn’t plan on leaving—”
Ace got that sinking feeling in his gut. “But?”
Maddie shrugged. “But there were things that she felt needed doing here first.”
“Things?” Ace asked. “What things?” What the hell had Petunia gotten herself into now?
“You remember Penelope?”
“Clyde Peyton’s widow?”
“Yes. She broke her leg.”
“Yeah, I remember. Doc set it. Said it healed fine.”
“She couldn’t work while it was broken.”
“And?” There was always an “and” with Petunia.
“She couldn’t feed her kids because Michael Orvis wouldn’t extend her credit at the mercantile.”
Ace sighed. “Don’t tell me.”
“Petunia used her savings to pay off what she could of the bill, so Mr. Orvis would give Penny more credit.”
“So you’re saying, she’s nowhere near the price of her ticket.”
Ace didn’t know if he was relieved or annoyed.
“You could just buy it for her,” Caden pointed out.
“If I thought I could get her to take it, I would.” That was a lie. He had a lust/hate relationship with Petunia’s presence in town. More lust than hate. More want than was sensible.
“So what are we going to do?” Maddie asked.
“Why do we have to do anything?” Ace asked. “Can’t we just let her suffer the consequences of her actions, for once?”
Maddie looked horrified at the very thought. “She has no idea of the potential repercussions. She’s used to Eastern ways.” She turned to Caden. “Do something.”
“Don’t put me in this,” Caden said.
Maddie glanced down the street where her Sunday customers were meandering their way. “Please?”
Caden rocked back in the chair as she hurried back into the bakery. The bell above the door jangled a protest. “You heard the little woman.”
Ace bit down hard on his back molars, reaching for patience. “I’m tired of cleaning up Petunia’s messes. I’m not her father. I’m not her brother. I’m not her husband.”
“But you want her,” Caden said, putting it right out there.
“There’s nothing about the woman to want. She wears her hair scraped back so tight her eyebrows meet her ears. And if her corset were laced any tighter, she’d die of suffocation.”
Caden laughed and waved to the folk approaching. “You ought to be grateful for that. More wind means more words.”
“I don’t need more words from that woman.”
“Yes, you do, just sweeter ones.”
“You could dump a bucket of sugar on that woman, and she wouldn’t be sweet enough.”
Maddie fussed with the tray of buns and called out, “I think the right man could sweeten her up.”
“Eavesdropping isn’t an attractive trait,” Ace snapped at her.
“But a useful one.”
Ace shook his head at Caden. “She isn’t even ashamed of it.”
“Why should she be?” Caden asked with a fond look at his wife. “It gets her what she wants to know.”
“You should be setting a better example.”
Caden snorted. “Since when have any of us worried about what others thought?”
Since never.
Maddie stopped sorting the rolls and looked straight at him. “In that case, Ace Parker, you could stop saving her and just start courting her.”
For the first time in a long time, Ace flinched. “I’m a gambler and a brawler.”
“You’re a good man with a good heart, but you run too much.”
He didn’t need Maddie weaving rainbows around the impossible. “Let it go, Maddie.”
“Letting it go doesn’t change the truth. You want her.” She came back to the porch, licking frosting off her fingers. “She wants you. You have many things in common, including a passion for doing the right thing. The only difference between you is she’s open about it.”
“Gambling is not the right thing.”
Maddie huffed. “Gambling bores you.”
“The hell it does.”
Caden touched Maddie’s shoulder. “Let it go, Maddie mine.”
She slammed her hands on her hips and jerked her chin at Ace. “So he can continue doing what he doesn’t like doing? So he can continue to be unhappy?”
“A man’s got a right to be unhappy if he wants to be.”
“But it’s silly when everything he wants is just an arm’s reach away. He’s just too afraid to grab it.”
The hell he was. Frustration and anger prodded. Frustration because customers were gathering, and he couldn’t say what he wanted. Anger because Maddie didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. The last thing any woman needed was for him to give in to the needs that drove him. Especially a prim and proper woman like Petunia. Just the thought of touching her the way she needed had his blood heating dangerously.
On a tight “I’ll see you later,” Ace turned on his heel and strode down the street, absently nodding in response to greetings, his mind consumed with the thought of pinning Petunia’s wrists to the bed, of kissing her so deeply