Lisa Plumley - Notorious in the West

“You only crusade on behalf of your friends?”

“It’s not a crusade.” She gave him an uncomfortably comprehending look—one he didn’t care for much. “It’s decency. Something you’re not on very close terms with, evidently.”

But Griffin knew that already. She couldn’t hurt him by pointing out the truth, any more than she could wound him by asserting grass was green. He hauled in a breath, intending to tell her so. “I’m sorry,” he surprised himself by saying.

Her eyes widened in surprise. But she didn’t speak.

“That’s not good enough for you?” he groused, unaccountably piqued by her unsatisfying reaction to his concession. “You want a prettier apology than that? I don’t have one for you.”

“Mr. Turner.” Delicately, she placed her hand on his arm. He realized, to his unwelcome dismay, that he didn’t know her name—and, to his further consternation, that he wanted to. “An apology isn’t only for the person who receives it. It’s also for the person who gives it. It’s for the person who needs to see what he’s done...and to try his hardest not to do it again.”

Griffin frowned. Would she never quit saying things that confounded him? Something about her made him feel that she had...something...he needed. Something important and inexplicable.

Something he shouldn’t allow himself to have.

“You shouldn’t casually touch a man like me,” he warned in a low voice. “Especially when you’re alone with him in his private hotel suite, and he’s still a little drunk.”

“Drunk?” She peered at him. “That explains a great deal.”

It didn’t explain enough, Griffin knew as he moved beyond her reach to stand nearby. It didn’t explain why he’d apologized to her...except that he’d felt a cad for not doing so. In the past decade, few people had roused a true sense of remorse in him.

That she had was all the more reason to avoid her.

“Don’t make excuses for me,” he said. “You’ll regret it.”

“I doubt it,” she disagreed with surprising sanguinity. “Folks generally live up to people’s expectations of them.”

“Or down. I’ll likely stay drunk for weeks to come.”

“Is that your plan? Is that why you’ve come here?”

“No. I came here to confide all my secrets to a suitably nosy chambermaid.” He gave her a deliberately bland look. “I’m lucky you’re here. You’re exactly what I need.”

Her uncomfortable expression told him all he needed to know. She was no more a chambermaid than he was a saint.

“You’re making fun of me. I see.” With abundant poise, she put her palms together. “I guess I’ve overstayed my welcome.”

She offered Griffin a wobbly, unpracticed chambermaid’s curtsy. Despite his best intentions to remain unmoved by her, her awkward gesture amused him greatly. Her stubborn pride endeared her to him, too. They had that much in common—that, and a love of difficult books. He didn’t want to see her leave.

He also didn’t want to admit it.

It would almost have been worthwhile to agree to being pestered by maid service while he was here, Griffin reckoned, if it would mean seeing Miss Milky White every day during his stay. Having her attend to him would mean he didn’t have to endure one rubbernecking dunderhead after another as various members of the hotel staff found reasons to “help” fulfill his requests.

This was not the first time he’d been the subject of prurient curiosity during a hotel visit. It wouldn’t be the last. The difference was, Griffin now knew how to inure himself.

“I hope you enjoy your stay with us.” Her gaze lingered tellingly—yearningly—on his books. With evident effort, she transferred her attention to the door. “Good morning to you!”

Griffin tried not to watch her leave. He did. But there was something positively entrancing about the way his “chambermaid” moved. It wasn’t overtly sensual. It wasn’t even especially ladylike. Her movements, it occurred to him, were appealing not because of their grace but because of their inherent liveliness. Here was a woman, he understood as he watched her stride across his suite, who was interested in everything life had to offer.

Why that should appeal so strongly to him, Griffin didn’t know. He only knew that it did. And that he still wanted her.

“Wait,” he blurted.

She turned, characteristically inquisitive...and far too decent for the likes of him. “Yes?”

“I...” Hellfire. All at once, he felt as bumbling as a green youth of fourteen, all thumbs and stutters. “What is your name?”

“Hmm.” Her eyes sparkled. “You want to know my name?”

Was she teasing him? Incredibly, her tone suggested as much, yet Griffin knew that couldn’t be possible. No one teased him. He’d become far too influential—far too fearsome—for that.

“Tell me your name.” A beat. “Please.”

This time, it was her turn to smile. “If you want to know that—if you want me to come back—then you’ll have to apologize to Miss Holloway first,” she declared. “She’ll let me know when you’ve done so to her satisfaction.”

“No.” Griffin could scarcely believe her audacity. She couldn’t order him about. “Tell me now. I demand to know.”

Her laughter rang out. “Mr. Turner, you are in the Arizona Territory! I don’t know or care what you’ve done back in the states. Here, everyone starts fresh. Before you start expecting folks to kowtow to you, you’ll have to prove yourself.”

He frowned. “I’ll do nothing of the kind.”

A shrug. “Suit yourself. But our coffee is mighty fine. Everyone in town says so. I can promise you that you’re missing out on a wonderful brew. And a tasty breakfast, too.”

She opened the door to his suite. Griffin stopped her.

“Wait.” He couldn’t help admiring the steely strength of her posture and the shininess of her elaborately upswept hair. He couldn’t help admiring her. Unfortunately, that impulse was in opposition to everything he knew he ought to want. “Do you really have nothing to lose?” he asked, reminded of her words in the hallway. If that was true, it was something else they had in common. “With your friend, Miss Holloway, I heard you say—”

“I’m afraid that’s not something I intend to share with you, Mr. Turner.” She cast him an indomitable over-the-shoulder look—one that, again, diligently avoided his nose. “Remember, if you begin feeling peckish, just ask for Miss Holloway at the hotel’s front desk and get busy making your amends to her.”

“I’d rather eat wood chips. I’d rather wear skirts!”

“I think that could be arranged. There’s Mr. Copeland’s lumber mill at the edge of town. He has wood chips available. As far as skirts go, well, Mrs. Crabtree—the newspaperman’s wife—is a fine seamstress. I’m sure she could accommodate your request.”

Her mischievous expression poked at his pride and his wish for seclusion alike. Suddenly, the notion of spending his days alone in the dark didn’t hold quite as much soul-salving appeal as it once had. But if she thought he was going to beg...

“I’d rather shut down this hotel altogether,” Griffin told her mulishly, “than be ordered about by a chambermaid.” He didn’t understand why she believed him capable of apologizing to Miss Holloway in the first place. Or why she believed him interested in doing so. The tabloid press who wrote about his ruthless business practices expected nothing of the kind from him. Unlike his “chambermaid,” they showed Griffin due respect for his reputation. Unreasoningly, he wanted her to respect him, as well. “I can do it, you know.”

Her smile flashed again, full of patient indulgence. “What I know is that you’ve had too much Old Orchard, Mr. Fancypants.” Breezily, she raised her hand in a farewell gesture. “Enjoy your solitude, sir. You know how to reach me, if you need anything.”

Then she curtsied again—nearly toppling over in the process—exited his suite and left Griffin on his own to brood.

Chapter Six

It took less than three and a half hours for everything in Olivia’s life to change. She popped over to Miss Violet Benson’s church-side home for her quilting bee—late, flushed and inattentively toting a parasol instead of her sewing supplies, having been rattled by her encounter with Mr. Turner—only to return to The Lorndorff later to find the whole place in tumult.

Outside the hotel, a pair of guests were hastily piling into a waiting wagon. A carriage stood behind it, obviously awaiting more departing guests. From the corner livery stable, taciturn Owen Cooper, the owner, strode toward the hotel while leading two saddled horses, undoubtedly delivering them to some out-of-town visitors who’d stabled their mounts with him.

Confused, Olivia picked up her pace. That was when she glimpsed the hotel’s employees clustered worriedly in the lobby. Annie was there, along with the other maids. So were the desk clerk, the bellman and the dining room staff. Through the open doors leading inside, an unfamiliar, well-dressed man was visible, too. He stood on the lower steps of the hotel’s oak staircase, addressing the staff from that elevated position.

Olivia ducked inside, feeling—as she always did—gratefully enveloped by The Lorndorff’s cozily familiar furnishings, fine upholstered settees and sparkling crystal chandeliers.

Oddly enough, her father was nowhere in sight.

“...the future of the hotel is as yet undecided,” the stranger was saying in an assured tone. “The Lorndorff may remain a hotel, much as it is today. Or it may close to guests and become Mr. Turner’s private residence in Morrow Creek.” He gave the hotel employees an amiable shrug. “If you don’t want to work for Mr. Turner in either capacity, you may accept your final pay envelopes and be on your way. Or you may remain here, on staff, to fulfill Mr. Turner’s wishes. It’s your decision.”

Galvanized by his words, Olivia stopped cold, surrounded by bewildered employees, gossiping guests and the workaday sounds of industry going on in the lively street outside the hotel.

Mr. Turner’s wishes? As far as Olivia recalled, the cranky, hard-drinking Mr. Turner’s wishes had extended to exactly three things: being left alone, making sure no one gossiped about him—especially right under his nose—and shutting down the hotel if he didn’t get his way in the first two instances.

I’d rather shut down this hotel altogether than be ordered about by a chambermaid, she recollected him saying before she’d left his suite. I can do it, you know.

Oh, sweet heaven. Could he possibly have truly done it?

She hadn’t dreamed he’d actually had the wherewithal.

The hotel seemed to still be functioning. But it was doing so perfunctorily, Olivia realized as she took an observant look around. It was doing so without her father’s guidance. Without her father’s heart and attentiveness and care. Without the very qualities that had made The Lorndorff legendary in the West.

This hotel was her home. Its staff was a family to her. She loved...all of them. Now, possibly because of her—because she’d accidentally pushed ornery Mr. Turner into making a rash and foolhardy decision—the hotel’s operations were threatened.

Queasily, Olivia remembered her earlier, unfortunate reaction to Mr. Turner’s threat about closing The Lorndorff.

You’ve had too much Old Orchard, Mr. Fancypants.

Her flippancy had been unwise, to be true. Still, that didn’t explain who this man was or how this was happening to the hotel. Only one of her father’s wealthy investors could have...