“I don’t want fritters.”

Frowning, Molly regarded him. “Tea cakes then?”

“No. Something more.” His grasp loosened, became more of caress. His thumb stroked over the sensitive skin at the underside of her wrist. “Something…sweeter.”

Molly trembled. Staunchly she made herself stop gawping at the lovely contrast between Marcus’s big, sun-browned hand and her lace-trimmed gloves. He’d magically found the one gap between those gloves and her long-sleeved dress, and he toyed with it even now. The sensation caused by his thumb against her bare skin made her want to close her eyes to savor it. Instead, she summoned all her will to address Marcus directly.

“Perhaps a dumpling, then? They’re quite fresh.”

So are you, Marcus’s teasing expression said.

“No. Sweeter.” He tugged her nearer.

It was true, then. He did have more in mind than mere delectables…!

Praise for Lisa Plumley’s book
THE DRIFTER

“A sweet Americana tale…

this gentle love story will touch your heart!”

—Romantic Times

“In this charming tale of acceptance Ms. Plumley has

touched a universal chord. Sparked with whimsy and

humor, this is a thoroughly enjoyable book!”

—Rendezvous

“The Drifter will have you smiling often…I heartily

recommend it for a pleasurable, romantic read!”

—Romance Reviews Today

“There’s a lot to like in The Drifter. If you’ve missed

those wonderful romances by LaVyrle Spencer,

you might want to check it out!”

—The Romance Reader

The Matchmaker
Lisa Plumley

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Melissa Endlich, with many thanks.

And to John Plumley, with all my love.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter One

Northern Arizona Territory September 1882

C hange was afoot in Morrow Creek.

From the whispering ponderosa pines crowding the hills at the edge of town, to the false-fronted buildings lining Main Street and all the way to the shadowy interior of Murphy’s saloon, things just weren’t the way they were supposed to be. The way the bachelors of the town wanted them to be. Tonight, on this frost-tinged autumn evening, they’d gathered together to address the problem.

The problem of the mysterious meddling matchmaker.

Marcus Copeland, running uncharacteristically late, made it into the meeting just as two of the barkeeps broke apart from the crowd to bar the saloon doors. With a nod for both men, Marcus slipped inside and found an empty stool in the corner. From his position at the back of the room, he heard the heavy crossbar thud into place at the doors, sealing all the members of the Morrow Creek Men’s Club inside for this, their third emergency meeting in as many weeks.

“Damnation! Somethin’ has got to be done,” old man Jeffries was saying. “It ain’t right, what that matchmaker’s been doin’. It just ain’t right.”

A round of nods and murmured voices greeted his pronouncement. Dusty boots stamped on the floor with enthusiasm, and several men raised their glasses of whiskey, lager and mescal in a show of support for Jeffries. If their combined grumblings and disgruntled expressions were anything to judge by, every last unmarried man in the territory felt equally beleaguered by the matchmaker’s problematic meddling.

Marcus figured he had more vital things to worry about—like the set of ledgers from his lumber mill that still needed double-checking, and the schedule for next week’s shipment that still needed to be assigned to one of his foremen. But as an upstanding member of the community, and a bachelor who’d been provoked just about as much as any other man there, he’d decided it was his duty to attend the meeting.

Whether he wanted to or not.

Near the saloon’s bar, beneath Murphy’s already-famous gilt-framed portrait of a scantily clad water nymph, another man rose. Marcus recognized him as O’Neil, the butcher. He clutched a pint of Levin’s ale in a fist roughened by years of wielding a cleaver, and raised his voice to be heard over the other men.

“Jeffries is right!” he said. “This ruckus is getting out of hand. So are these forward-thinkin’ ladies. Why just last week, Emmaline Jones turned up at my shop with—”

He paused, as though the truth of the matter were too awful to be admitted aloud.

“—with a yellow em-broi-dered butcher’s apron for me. The next day, she came back with a matching neckerchief. Seems the matchmaker told her I had a cold coming on, and would ’precciate the gesture.”

“Was it em-broi-dered, too?” yelled someone from beside the potbellied stove.

Guffaws filled the room.

“No.” O’Neil hung his head. “But it smelled like rose petals. The fool woman wouldn’t leave till I put it on. Now I ask you, how’s a man s’posed to work wearin’ a thing like that? Smellin’ like flowers?”

The men’s voices rose, loud with advice to O’Neil on the virtues of “smellin’ pretty.” Marcus cracked a grin and opened the first of the two ledgers he’d brought, scanning the rows of neatly penciled entries within. It looked as though it might be a while before the men’s club came to any conclusions. He might as well get some work done.

“Quit yer bellyachin’,” put in the tanner who kept his shop a short ways distant from the Copeland lumber mill. “That fool matchmaker’s advice has the whole town in an uproar. It ain’t just you. Hell, just this mornin’ that little gal who just came to town gave me a pink knitted rifle cozy!”

Heads shook all around.

“Now I ask you,” the tanner went on, “who the hell ever heard of a rifle cozy? My guns ain’t cold, like a pot o’ tea. What’s a fella supposed to do with a thing like that?”

“Well,” drawled the red-haired rancher from the west side of town, crossing his arms over his tobacco-stained vest, “you can’t put it with my hand-sewed bullet carrier that Mary Jane Mayberry gave me two days ago.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause mine’s baby-blue.” He paused. Spit. “Won’t match.”

Table-thumping laughter ensued. Marcus shook his head and turned another ledger page, blowing away the sawdust that clung to the paper. Compared to the rest of the bachelors in town, the matchmaker had taken things easy on him.

Sure, having his men come to work bleary-eyed and distracted from visits and letters and surprise gifts from hopeful brides-to-be hadn’t helped his lumber mill any. In fact, it was downright dangerous having inattentive workers running the saws. But Marcus had handled those problems on an individual basis, by reassigning the affected men to less hazardous jobs. Where his personal life was concerned…well, the matchmaker’s antics had left him relatively, and curiously, untouched.

“What about this?” Another man stood, holding a necktie aloft. It dangled from his fingertips like a limp, lace-frothed rattlesnake, remarkably ugly in shades of brown and green. “The matchmaker told the preacher’s daughter to make this damn thing for me. Now, if she comes to my mercantile and I’m not wearing it, she gets all weepy on me.” He shook his head. “I can’t run a business with nonsense like that going on.”

“Awww!” The men nearest him aimed nonsympathetic jabs at his ribs. One grabbed the necktie and slung it over the merchant’s shoulders, then stepped back as though to study the effect. “I declare!” he exclaimed in a piercing falsetto voice. “You look just like a picture in Godey’s.”

They all laughed, good-naturedly slapping their friend on the back. The necktie was passed to a cowhand, who whirled it overhead like a lasso. At the sight of it, Marcus shuddered. A man had to draw the line somewhere. Ugly neckties—with lace of all things—seemed like a good place to start.

The worst he’d personally received had been a tentative invitation to a “moonlit stroll with a lady admirer” in one of the matchmaker’s personal advertisements. Printed in Adam Crabtree’s Pioneer Press at irregular intervals, the advertisements were read with groans and expressions of resignation from the beleaguered men and eager giggles from the women. Of all the marriage-minded weapons in the matchmaker’s arsenal, the advertisements were among the most powerful.

“Irene Posy wrote po-e-try about me,” a bearded railroad man in the corner said. “And put it in the newspaper!”

“Alma Avondale follows me all the way to my mine claim every blasted morning, chattering on about the dance at the Chautauqua next month,” another man complained. “She thinks I’d make a right fine partner for the quadrille, if I’d shine up my boots.”

The miner’s drinking companions huffed in indignation. Not a man among them would admit to getting gussied up for a mere female. Not in public, at least.

The shared complaints continued. Feeling increasingly fortunate, Marcus spent the next several minutes rechecking figures. Conversations swirled around him, punctuated with gulps of whiskey and streams of tobacco juice hitting—and missing—the spittoons. Growing warm in the mishmash of bodies filling the room, he peeled off his suit coat and laid it beneath his stack of ledgers. He loosened his starched collar, then went on working.

“That’s nothing.” A calm, authoritative voice broke into the melee, and Marcus glanced up to see that the saloon’s owner, Morrow Creek newcomer Jack Murphy, had spoken.

“I won’t give names, because the lady has a reputation to protect,” he went on in his faint Irishman’s brogue, spreading his hands to encourage quiet in the room. “But this morning, a lady claimed the matchmaker had sent her to find her one true love…here, inside my saloon.”

A shocked silence fell over the men. For several moments, they contemplated this unthinkable piece of information. Even Marcus put down his pencil, frowning. If a woman would invade the sanctity of the saloon, what next? Females in britches? Ladies wearing face paint and powder and French perfume? Women who would take it in their heads to kiss a man first, without being courted?

Actually, upon reflection Marcus decided he liked the sound of that last notion. Quite a bit. But the rest…clearly, something had to be done.

The mysterious Morrow Creek matchmaker, whoever she was, had to be stopped. But how?

“Inside your saloon?” Old man Jeffries mopped his brow with a suspiciously doodad-embellished handkerchief, clearly done in by this new turn of events. “Inside?”

Jack nodded, looking somber. It was true, then. No place was safe any longer.

“Now, we all know there’s no easy way out of this,” Jack went on. Several men nodded. The creak of chairs shifting beneath bulky bodies as the men strained to see, and urgent whispers for quiet, were the only sounds in the room. “But between the lot of us, we ought to be able to come up with something.”

“I already tried sayin’ I wasn’t keen on gettin’ hitched,” the sad-faced man beside Marcus said. “Leastwise, not to a woman who’s not my own choosin’. But them gals get all fired up by the matchmaker. They don’t pay no mind to reason.”

Someone at the end of the bar laughed. “What woman does?”

A hum of agreement swelled upward, reaching to the raw-timber rafters that delineated the saloon space downstairs from whatever occupied the building’s top floor. Thoughtfully, Marcus lifted his gaze, wondering if he could interest Jack Murphy in the purchase of a punched-tin ceiling from the lumber mill’s assortment of building supplies. At three cents a linear foot, the profit on the new ceiling would be….

Another voice interrupted his musings. “Now hold on. I reckon these womenfolk can be reasoned with,” said Daniel McCabe, the town blacksmith. “That’s what I did.”

He raised his burly arm, chugged down an impressive quantity of mescal, then wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his plain white shirt. Tipping his chair back on two legs, he regarded the gathering with a self-satisfied smile. “That’s all it takes.”

“You don’t say, McCabe.” The butcher squinted, appearing to consider the notion. With a suddenly skeptical twist of his lips, he turned to Daniel again. “That made the ladies the matchmaker loosed on you quit comin’ ’round and pesterin’ you?”

“Hell, no.” Daniel’s grin widened. “But now they come ’round with things I want to have. A pair of new tongs from the mercantile, a bottle of lager on a hot day, a hank of sausage from your butcher shop—” He ticked off the items on his fingers, stopping only when interrupted by increasingly loud laughter.

Shrugging, Daniel hooked his arms in the braces holding up his soot-smudged pants. “You fellas just have to know how to handle a female, is all.”

Only a few stools down from Daniel, Marcus accepted his customary evening meal—good ale, a plate of Murphy’s tinned beans with bacon, and a hunk of brown bread—and counted out the coppers to pay for it. He began to eat, automatically scanning the day’s recorded timber yield.

It was low, probably because of the slowdowns caused by the matchmaker’s giggling, gaggling feminine disciples. They’d caused his men such distraction that both yields and profits were down. For now, the problem was small. But if it grew any more troublesome, Marcus’s planned expansion of his lumber mill would be delayed.

Concerned by the realization, Marcus turned his attention to the conversation again. This was taking much too long to resolve. Wasn’t anyone here capable of handling a passel of women?

“Why don’t we speak to the matchmaker in her own language?” Marcus suggested, setting his beans and bread aside. “We can take out a personal advertisement of our own. Tell her the men of Morrow Creek want their lives back.”

“And,” O’Neil added, “that they’ll do their courtin’ on their own terms. With the women they choose.”

Marcus nodded. Obviously, all this group needed was leadership. It was as true here as it was in his lumber mill all day long.

“Won’t work.” With a terse snap of his wrist, Jack Murphy finished wiping down the bar and flicked the wet cloth into the corner bucket. He spread his hands on the newly clean surface and leaned forward. “Adam Crabtree won’t take personal advertisements from anybody but the matchmaker’s private courier. Nobody knows who that is.”

“Lord,” the tanner groused. “She’s got us sewn up tighter than Copeland’s hold on his wallet.”

Chortles abounded as heads turned toward Marcus. He laughed, too, as agreeable to the joke as anyone else. It was true that he kept a firm grasp on his money. He’d worked hard for it. There was no crime in wanting to secure a good future.

Especially after the things he’d gone through to get there.

All the same, Marcus wasn’t so far off the mark that he couldn’t appreciate the humor in a man who accounted for every last pine shaving at the lumber mill. A man who couldn’t resist locking the door of his house when his neighbors did not. A man who’d stocked his pantry with enough tinned peaches, Arbuckle’s coffee and bags of dried beans to last until he turned gray, and who never finished a meal without tucking away a portion of it for later…just in case.

A man like him.

“I’d say we’ve got the clue we need, then,” he said, thinking back on what had been said about the matchmaker’s personal advertisements—and the Pioneer Press editor’s involvement in them. The man was known to be a radical thinker, espousing all sorts of eccentric ideas. “It sounds to me as though Adam Crabtree must be involved somehow.”

“Or his daughters!” someone piped up. “Those three are something else, again. Why, that Sarah Crabtree knows just about everyone in town, seeing as how she teaches all our children down at the schoolhouse. I’d say she’d have some definite ideas about who should be matched up.”

“Now, hold on,” interrupted Daniel McCabe, standing up so that his intimidating bulk loomed over the speaker. “I know Sarah, and there’s no way in hell she—”

“You’re right!” O’Neil said, breaking in before Daniel could finish. “There’s something ’spicious about those Crabtree sisters. All three of ’em spinsters and busybodies are privy to half the town’s secrets, between ’em. ’Specially that Grace Crabtree, with all her highfalutin ‘ladies’ clubs’ and such. She must know every old biddy in Morrow Creek.”

The men around him nodded vigorously. The buzz of conversation rose louder, enlivened by this new development. Jack Murphy weighed in with his opinion on Grace Crabtree, and Daniel McCabe rose again in defense of her sister Sarah. Talk turned to the third and youngest sister, Molly Crabtree. Amidst it all, Marcus worked on the ledgers and finished his beans and ale. Absentmindedly, he wrapped the remaining half of brown bread in his handkerchief and tucked the bundle into his coat pocket.

Suddenly, the tanner’s voice came again: “You’re a thinking kind of man, Copeland. How ’bout that for a plan?”

Marcus blinked, unable to recall the multiple directions the conversation had taken after his suggestion that Adam Crabtree might be linked to the mysterious matchmaker.

“Yeah, Copeland. You’re the one who thought up this idea,” O’Neil said. “’Tis only fair you take on Molly.”

“Molly?”

“Molly Crabtree,” O’Neil explained. Inexplicably, his face reddened, as though the mere mention of the woman’s name brought a blush to his face. Curious. “You must’ve seen her. Her little bakery shop—”

Titters erupted throughout the room, and were quickly stifled.

“—is just down the street from your place.”

Marcus squinted, trying to recall what lay on the path between his modest house and the lumber mill he’d put into operation only two short years ago. He envisioned nothing. Most days, his walk to his office was filled with thoughts of the day to come—work crews to be assigned, timber to be felled, shipments to be hauled to the railway. He wasn’t some kind of lay-about, with time to gawk at the scenery he passed.

“I don’t recall seeing her,” he said. “I don’t have time to—”

“Come on, Copeland,” someone called from near the bar. “You must’ve seen her.”

“She’s a female.” More laughter. “Remember those?”

“About so high—” one of the billiards players who frequented the newly opened saloon held his hand at chest height. “—with a fancy hat, a sweet swoosh of skirts, and a very important difference in the fit of her shirtwaist.”

Everyone laughed. Irritated, Marcus slapped the second of his ledgers closed. He knew what a woman was! Hell, he’d done his share of warming up the long nights with someone soft and biddable and more than able to fill out the ‘fit of her shirtwaist.’ Granted, he hadn’t had time for any of that for a while now…but that didn’t mean he needed his friends and neighbors making him look the fool.

“Maybe we can draw a picture,” teased the mercantile owner, “so Marcus here can locate the lady and find out if she’s the matchmaker or not.”

Ahh. So that was what the ‘taking on’ referred to by O’Neil was. The Morrow Creek Men’s Club expected him to find a way to discover if the bakery-owning Crabtree sister was the matchmaker. Marcus frowned, raising his hand to forestall further discussion.

It didn’t work.

“A picture! That’s what he needs.” Agreement was reached quickly. Jack Murphy winked and produced a finger’s width of chalk from behind the bar, then tossed it to the man most likely to be able to render a recognizable likeness—Deputy Winston, from the sheriff’s office. Hunkering down beside a nearby table, Winston examined the scarred wood surface, wearing the same expression he did while indulging in his favorite hobby: copying the images from the jailhouse’s collection of wanted posters.

He drew. In no time flat, he straightened, revealing a bumpy, chalky likeness of a woman wearing a frothy dress, disproportionately huge bosoms, and an even huger bonnet. “There you go, Copeland. Have at ’er.”

Tight featured, Marcus stood. For one long, silent moment, he stared down at the bawdy caricature. “Very well,” he said at last. “I’ll find out if Miss Crabtree is the matchmaker.”

“And stop her!”

“Of course.”

“Then we’re all in agreement,” Jack said from his place at the bar. “We find this matchmaker, we find whatever it takes to prove that she’s behind the shenanigans, and we stop her. Marcus with Miss Molly, Daniel with Miss Sarah, and me—” he hesitated, seeming pained by the announcement “—with Miss Grace. All members in agreement?”

“Hell, yes!” cried the men. Hooting, stamping, clanking their glasses together in glee, they fell into clumps of four or five men each, ready to celebrate the impending downfall of the meddlesome matchmaker who had wrecked their peaceable lives.

“One more thing,” Marcus said, raising his voice to be heard over the din. “The next man who treats a woman’s likeness and reputation this way—” he thumped the chalk drawing on the table, bringing his gaze to bear on the roomful of men “—will have me to answer to.”

A hush fell over the celebrants. Quickly the deputy stepped forward and rubbed away the image with his shirtsleeve. “Sorry,” he muttered. “No offense meant, Copeland. I thought you didn’t even know the gal.”

“I don’t.” But I will soon. Marcus slung his suit coat over his arm and gathered his ledgers. “But I won’t stand by and see a lady hurt. By anyone. For any reason.”

He gave the crowd another warning gaze, then turned his back on them and headed for the barred doors. The two barkeeps hurried forward to remove the barrier designed to insure the Morrow Creek Men’s Club’s privacy. Wearing jointly chagrined expressions, they waved Marcus through.

Outside he paused, listening as the doors were barred shut again and the revelry resumed. Shaking his head, Marcus followed the moonlit path toward his house at the edge of town.

Cool, pine-scented air filled his lungs and restored his good humor. Before he’d walked very far, he was fairly champing at the bit to locate Miss Molly Crabtree tomorrow. If she was the matchmaker, stopping her activities would improve work at his lumber mill and fulfill his promise to the men’s club, both. All he needed was a little ingenuity. A lot of patience. And a plan.

A plan to restore peace. A plan to set things right again, the way they should be. With a little effort, he decided, it shouldn’t be all that difficult.

After all, Molly Crabtree was a woman. A woman engaged, oddly enough, in trade, but a woman nonetheless. How much trouble could she possibly be?

Whistling, Marcus went forward, feeling more than ready to meet the task that awaited him.

Chapter Two

M olly Crabtree just knew she could make a success of her new bakery business…if only she could get outside her family’s front door and get to it.

But today, like nearly every day since she’d opened her shop, Molly was waylaid halfway across the parlor rug by a passel of well-meaning family members. Before long, escape seemed impossible.

Her mother entered the room first, clapping her hands together. “Wait just a minute, Molly May,” she ordered.

Stifling a sigh, Molly turned. She hated it when anyone called her by her full name, as though she were a five-year-old in short skirts, instead of a fully grown woman of twenty-four.

“You’re not seriously contemplating walking to your shop, are you? Alone?” Fiona Crabtree asked. Her upswept gray curls shivered with dismay, and her lips turned downward in a way that never failed to stir guilt, and exasperation, in Molly’s heart.

“I am, Mama. It’s not far, you know.”

Fiona lowered her gaze to the wicker basket filled with cinnamon, a dozen eggs and a cone of fresh sugar that Molly had tucked beneath her arm. As though her youngest daughter had never spoken, she continued, “And with a heavy bundle like that, too? Why, it just won’t do. I’ll send for Ambrose to come drive you in the newspaper’s wagon.”

“Mama, thank you, but I—”

“Not while she’s wearing that blue gingham of mine, I hope!” Out of breath, Sarah Crabtree hurried downstairs with an armload of schoolbooks for her students, eyeballing the gown Molly had filched from their shared bureau this morning. “Papa’s wagon will make it filthy in no time. Do you know how difficult it is to wash out printer’s ink?”

“I promise to take care of it, Sarah,” Molly protested. “As for the wagon—” she faced her mother again, and was dismayed to find Fiona reaching toward her head with a gleam in her eyes—one Molly recognized perfectly well as an uncontrollable desire to redo the chignon she’d already set in her hair. “—please don’t bother Ambrose. I don’t mind walking.”

“You’d best take a shawl, then.” Grace Crabtree, pink cheeked from an early-morning bicycling jaunt with her ladies’ group, paused at the parlor’s entrance, then headed upstairs. Her new custom-made bicycling costume flounced cheerily all the way up the steps. “It’s brisk outside this shortly after sunrise, Moll.”

Molly sighed. A moment later, the family’s cook bustled in from the kitchen at the rear of the house, carrying a napkin-wrapped piece of toasted bread.

She held it toward Molly. “You forgot your breakfast.”

Exasperated, Molly stared at the strawberry jam gleaming atop the toasted bread. To be sure, she loved her family. But just once, she wanted to be treated as though she knew enough to dress properly, confront the weather appropriately, get herself to her shop efficiently…and eat when she needed to. Why couldn’t anyone see that she was a capable woman in her own right?

It was as though she’d never grown up at all. Her family still treated Molly like the four-year-old who’d danced with an imaginary friend. Like the nine-year-old who’d lost countless gloves and hats during daydreaming walks to school. Like the fourteen-year-old who’d expressed an urgent desire to become a famous stage actress and had lost all her meager nest egg buying a talent potion from a persuasive drummer. It was true that Molly was sometimes given to flights of fancy. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t take care of herself, given the opportunity.

Now, though, despite her efforts, Molly had begun to wonder whether that opportunity would ever arrive.

“Thank you,” she murmured, electing to take the bread rather than begin yet another battle she couldn’t win. “Now, I really must be going. Good morning, everyone!”

Juggling her wicker basket of supplies under one arm and the unwanted breakfast in her other hand, Molly stepped toward the parlor doorway to retrieve her bonnet. Almost there. The carved oak of the front door beckoned her, promising escape to a world of her design, only a few feet away.

Her father’s face popped into view as he rounded the banister and leapt from the staircase with his characteristic energy. Shrieking in surprise, Molly jumped. Her basket tumbled. The toasted bread flew upward, then came down again with a swiftness that defied even her father’s speedy movements.

It landed on the shoulder of Adam Crabtree’s favorite worsted wool suit coat. Jam side down.

It was just another typical morning in the Crabtree residence. Mayhem, meddling, flying bread, and all.

Molly was elbow deep in the first batch of her special-recipe cinnamon buns when the bell jangled above her shop door. She looked up, squinting against the early-morning sunlight. At the sight of the man standing on the threshold, her heartbeat quickened.

Goodness—a real live customer!

“Mornin’, Miss Crabtree,” he said politely, doffing his rolled-brim bowler.

Holding it between his restless hands, he looked around, taking in her shop’s floral wallpapered walls, trim blue wainscoting, and shelves filled with napkin-lined wicker baskets waiting to be outfitted with cookies or tea cakes or lemon-raisin pies. From behind her work counter, Molly gave him her best, most welcoming smile. Considering that he was her first customer of the week, and it was already Thursday morning, she couldn’t risk offending him with anything less.

“Come right on in,” she said, inclining her head in what she hoped was a professional-seeming way. It was so hard to tell, when all she had was her father’s own jocular example to go by.

He came inside, letting the door swing shut behind him.

Molly wiped her floury hands on her apron and gestured at the stools she’d optimistically arranged along the work counter. “What can I get you today? I have a small batch of cinnamon buns just about to go in the oven, if you’d care to wait a few minutes for a fresh one. I also have fig gems, apple fritters and a very nice batch of snickerdoodle cookies planned for this afternoon.”

Tentatively he shuffled closer. “That sounds right fine. I ain’t had a snickerdoodle since I left the States.”

At the eager expression on his face, Molly could have kicked herself. She’d given the last three snickerdoodles to Ambrose this morning, for all his troubles in driving the wagon alongside her while she walked to the shop, and hadn’t yet had time to make more. Because her business hadn’t quite turned prosperous yet, it was necessary to make very, very, small batches of everything.

This man looked capable of devouring an entire dozen snickerdoodles, a feat that would have improved her fortunes for the day considerably. Hoping to cultivate his patronage, Molly smiled at him as she went on kneading her cinnamon bun dough.

“The fritters are quite good, too,” she said. “Nobody else in town has baked goods quite like mine, Mr….?”

“Oh. Walter. Thomas Walter,” the man stammered. His face flamed in colors vibrant enough to rival the changing oak leaves outside her window. “I—I’m sorry, Miss Crabtree, but I ain’t come to buy anything today.”

“You haven’t?”

“No.” He looked abashed, probably at her undoubtedly crestfallen expression. “I came because Mr. Copeland asked me to fetch you to the lumber mill this mornin’.”

“Copeland’s lumber mill? Why, I was planning on going out there later today as usual, but I—”

She stopped herself before she could admit the truth: Molly had almost decided to end her daily jaunts to the edge of town. More and more, the notion of selling her baked goods to the lumbermen who worked there seemed an impossible goal. Which was a shame, truly. More than half the men in town worked at Copeland’s mill. Securing them as customers would give her bakeshop a reliable source of revenue. Or would have, if not for…

Marcus Copeland. The mill’s owner—and her nemesis.

Molly meant that good-naturedly, of course. Truly, she did. But the man was a constant obstacle to her business goals for her bakery. Which was funny, really, because if anyone needed something sweet in his life, it was that stick-in-the-mud Marcus.

She’d discovered as much upon learning that he’d apparently given orders for his men not to leave the mill’s premises until the workday was done. By then, all his men wanted was dinner, not sweets. Now, after all that, he wanted to see her? And hadn’t even bothered to make the request himself, in person?

More than likely, the arrogant Mr. Copeland was only summoning her now to order her to abandon her temporary, and hopeful, post outside the lumber mill. Once and for all. The very idea put Molly’s back up—especially after the morning she’d just had.

“I was planning on going out there later today, as usual,” she repeated to Mr. Walter sweetly. “But I would be delighted to visit earlier, instead. Just as soon as I finish this batch of cinnamon buns. Would you tell Mr. Copeland that, please?”

“Yes’m.” Jerking his gaze from the front of her dress, Thomas Walter slapped on his hat and hurried out the door.

Left alone, Molly ducked her head. She examined the front of her borrowed, perfectly ordinary blue gingham dress. When she saw nothing there of interest—no wayward splatters of oil from fritter frying, no blobs of sticky date filling from gem making, merely the usual sprinkling of flour—she narrowed her gaze. Evidently the snickerdoodle-fancying Mr. Walter had an eye for more than sweets.

He had an eye for bosoms, too.

Not unlike many of the men in Morrow Creek, Molly had noticed to her chagrin. Wherever she went, the town bachelors seemed to glue their gazes to her bodice. Their appreciation might have moved her more had she not recognized it as completely superficial—not unlike the Crabtree sisters’ admiration of a new hat they’d like to own or a pair of buttoned-up brogans they’d like to possess.

Being equated with a desirable possession did not appeal to Molly—however much the men in town seemed oblivious to her feelings on the matter.

She wanted to find a beau who appreciated all of her. Fortunately, her mother and father understood that. They hadn’t pressed her into taking up with the occasional would-be beaus who’d called on her. Adam and Fiona Crabtree’s sometimes-radical views offered all their daughters the freedom to wait for a loving marriage, not a union spurred by bosomy interest. Unfortunately, the men inclined toward such an arrangement did not appear to live in Morrow Creek, at least in Molly’s experience.

It was lucky, she decided as she hastened to roll out the springy, yeast-scented dough, that the matchmaker was working so diligently to pair up the men with suitable wives.

Very lucky, indeed.

Rapidly Molly spread the dough’s surface with softened butter. She sprinkled on brown sugar and cinnamon, then added her special secret ingredient, making plans for her encounter with Mr. Copeland all the while. When a strategy finally occurred to her, she smiled.

After all, Molly reminded herself, there was no call to be cowardly. Marcus Copeland was only a man. A man, oddly enough, who seemed immune to her dresses’ allure, but a man nonetheless. Once she’d dealt with him face-to-face, how much trouble could he possibly be?

As Marcus might have expected of a woman, she was late.

Annoyed despite his determination not to be, he turned away from the edge of the lumber mill yard, where he’d been watching for Molly Crabtree to arrive. According to Thomas, one of his longtime buckers, she had agreed to come to the lumber mill nearly two hours ago. Where was she?

Two men walked past, carrying a crosscut saw between them. This was the third trip they’d made across the yard, Marcus knew. Other men loitered nearby, some bearing double-blade axes or sledgehammers and others propping their weight against the springboards they should have been using to work with. Instead, far too many of his men were spending their time waiting for Miss Crabtree to arrive.

Just like him.

Damnation.

Marcus couldn’t put his plan into motion until Molly Crabtree got there. It required the cooperation of his men, which was why they loitered about when the sun was nearly overhead. For the tenth time that day, Marcus removed his hat, shoved his hand through his hair and wished he’d never agreed to help the Morrow Creek Men’s Club discover the identity of the matchmaker.

If he’d known it would take this much time from his day, he’d never have swallowed the notion at all.

“There’s the signal, boss!” one of the sawyers yelled, pointing down the well-tended dirt path leading toward town. “She must be comin’!”

Sure enough, Marcus glimpsed a red bandanna being waved wildly between the swaying pine tree boughs. At the sight of the signal he’d instructed his foreman to use once he spotted Miss Crabtree headed their way, his belly lurched with something very close to excitement.

Impatience, he told himself sternly. It was impatience he felt to have this chowder-headed business behind him, not excitement.

Marcus was still reminding himself of that fact when the woman came into view, wearing a close-fitting dress and a bonnet nearly as enormous as the one Deputy Winston had drawn on the caricature at the saloon last night. For an instant, his thoughts lingered on the other, rounder, softer and equally impressive attributes he’d given Miss Crabtree in the picture. Marcus wondered if as little exaggeration was involved there as had been involved with her hat.

Shoving that enticing mystery aside, he turned to give his men the second signal. Marcus raised his hand, prepared to gesture with it…and realized that not one of his men was looking at him. They all stood with stupid, eager grins, slack jawed and glassy-eyed, watching Molly’s feminine, side-to-side swish as she made her way down the path toward the lumber mill.

They were hopeless.

So was Marcus, by the time she recognized him and ran the last few steps toward him. Lord, but the woman was a sight to behold.

Her face was alight with good humor, pink cheeked and delicately shaped beneath the brim of her flower-bedecked hat. A few tendrils of honey-colored hair had escaped its confines to tease her lips, drawing his attention to their tempting fullness. Sucking in a deep breath, Marcus took an instant to prepare, then treated himself to an up-close view of her fine woman’s figure in that waist-hugging dress.

No wonder his men had gone slack jawed.

For the life of him, in that moment Marcus couldn’t imagine a single reason why Molly Crabtree, as delightful looking a female as he’d ever seen, had grown into a spinster. How, he wondered to himself, could it be that no man had ever stuck a ring on her finger and made her his own?

Then…she opened her mouth.

“Morning, Mr. Copeland,” she said brightly. “Beautiful day, isn’t it? I’m so glad we’ve finally had this chance to meet face-to-face. Why, I don’t think we’ve ever said two words to each other, and that’s after you’ve been living here in Morrow Creek for the past two years! Can you imagine that? I guess we’ve just never had a moment to spare, what with you working on your lumber mill, and me working on my various ventures. Busy, busy, busy. That’s us.”

She paused for breath. For an instant, Marcus believed her chatter had come to an end. But then she looped her arm companionably in his, started walking them both toward the two-story lumber mill behind them, and just went on.

“I’m so happy you invited me here today. I just know we can come to an agreeable arrangement. My baked goods are unlike any others in town, you know. They’re positively unique.”

Marcus nodded, too distracted by the pleasurable feel of her slender arm cradled in his to offer much more to the conversation. She smelled spicy, he thought, and sweet. Like pumpkin pie, or gingerbread. Cinnamon, Marcus identified after a moment. Cinnamon and sugar.

Mmm.

He had a sudden impossible yet wholly irresistible image of himself together with Miss Molly. Alone. In his imagination, Marcus unfastened the first tiny pearled buttons on her dress. As he opened her gown, he kissed the warm, creamy skin he’d revealed at her neck. She tasted of spices as delicious as any he’d sampled…and of some, more exotic still.

Transfixed, Marcus let himself be led toward the shade of a stand of pine trees a few feet from the mill’s main entrance. Beside him, Molly struggled with the covered wicker basket she’d brought. Marcus chivalrously helped her lower it to a ponderosa stump.

Freed of her burden, she rummaged through its contents. Her movements sent her blue-checked skirts swishing against her legs, and the clump of men who’d followed them pushed closer. As one, their combined gazes dropped to her stocking-clad ankles.

A stern glance from Marcus had them all busily examining axes, tightening suspender straps and looking purposefully toward the towering pines beyond. With a shake of his head, Marcus dismissed them to await the next phase of his plan.

“I’m glad you could come on such short notice,” he told Molly when they were alone again. “I don’t often do things without planning first, but I—”

“Oh, but you should! The things you don’t plan for are often the most enjoyable of all.”

The very notion made Marcus frown. Fail to plan? Unthinkable. “Be that as it may, I did have some ideas in mind for us today.”

She quit fussing with the basket she’d brought and looked up. Her eyes were blue, he noticed inanely. As though that mattered a whit to discovering if she was really the secret matchmaker.

“You do?” Molly asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, then.” She smiled up at him, and turned so they faced each other fully. “I guess you’d better tell me what you have in mind. For us to do together, I mean.”

Together. Suddenly, all manner of unified activities occurred to Marcus. Things they could do together—very close together. As though guessing his thoughts, Molly lowered her gaze coquettishly, encouraging him to lower his gaze, too…all the way to those remarkable feminine curves of hers. Lord Almighty. Was Molly Crabtree flirting with him? It would seem so.

’Twould be fitting, if she were truly the matchmaker.

The matchmaker. Reminded of his mission, Marcus smiled back at her. He was no mere boy, to be dumbfounded by a feminine smile and a handful of enticing words.

Was he?

Hell, no. With new determination, Marcus cleared his throat and got on with his plan. “I couldn’t help but notice you outside the lumber mill yard these past weeks,” he began.

It wasn’t strictly true. His foreman, Smith, had enlightened Marcus about Molly’s continued vigil outside the mill yard, and the rest of his plan had sprung from there. Looking at her now, though, Marcus couldn’t imagine how he’d missed the sight of her.

Had business success turned him blind to the appeal of a pretty woman? Suddenly ill at ease, he wondered if his friends in the men’s club were right, and he needed to socialize more.

“If you mean to make me leave that spot,” Molly interrupted, turning back to her basket with shoulders gone suddenly stiff and defensive, “I’ll have you know that the road is public land, and so is its edge. You can’t force me away from there. Why, the whole town would probably be in an uproar if you so much as tried.”

“Hold on. There’s no call to get riled up. I never said I was asking you to leave, Miss Crabtree—”

“Molly, please.” Her shoulders relaxed, slim and delicately curved beneath the blue checked fabric of her dress.

“Molly.” He liked the sound of it. The intimacy of it. “Friends ought to call each other by their first names, don’t you think so?” She rose, holding a napkin-wrapped bundle in her small, elegant-looking hands.

“Uh.” He experienced an unprecedented urge to take those hands in his and slowly pull her closer. With a frown of confusion, Marcus wrestled down that impulse and settled for answering her question instead. “Yes, I do. Especially if you agree to the proposition I have in mind.”

“Proposition?”

She raised her eyebrows, looking intrigued and not half as offended as she might have been, had Molly guessed at the kind of bawdy thoughts that had been going through his mind.

“Yes. I want you to bring some of your baked goods to my lumber mill each day—at a time we agree on, of course—for sale to my men. It seems they’ve noticed your post outside the yard, too. To a man, they all clamored to have your sweets.”

A smile even more dazzling than her earlier one lit Molly’s face. “Truly?” she whispered.

“Truly.” Liar, his conscience jabbed. This was no more than a ploy, and Marcus knew it. It’s for a good cause, he reminded himself, and went on. “So I agreed.”

“Why, Mr. Copeland!”

“Marcus,” he insisted. Being on friendly terms with her could only improve his chances of discovering if she was the matchmaker, he reasoned. And of ending all this pretense quickly.

“Marcus, then. You’re just a big old softie at heart, aren’t you? That’s so sweet! My word, I’d never have guessed that a man so…well, so very businesslike as you would treat his men so finely. I’m impressed, truly I am.”

Her constant chatter made his head throb. Putting a hand to his temple, Marcus said gruffly, “My men fell more timber when they’re treated fairly. It’s just good business.”

Molly’s impish grin told him she believed not a word of it. “So was calling out Nellie Baxter, so you could sample her baked goods, I reckon,” she said, naming the owner of Morrow Creek’s other, more established bakery. “I passed by her on the road on my way here. Nothing else lies out this way except your lumber mill.”

Marcus tried to look abashed. He made a mental note to pay Smith a bonus for his suggestion that they pretend to consider the other bakery, lest Molly become suspicious of his sudden summons. “Well, now. Every man likes to do a little sampling, before deciding what’s right for him.”

Her eyes narrowed, fixed on the bundle she held as she unwrapped the napkin. “According to the matchmaker, it’s thinking like that that gets a man into trouble.”

Interest sparked inside him. “The matchmaker?”

“Surely you’ve heard of the matchmaker. The whole town’s abuzz with news of all that’s been accomplished.” As though that fact were of little consequence, Molly finished her unwrapping, revealing a plump, golden-brown cinnamon bun. Crystals of sugar sparkled in the sunlight. “But all that aside, you’ve asked me here to discuss business, and that’s what I intend to do.”

“Certainly.” And when we’re finished, I intend to ask you all about the matchmaker. More and more, it seemed as though Molly knew something about the subject. Something she wasn’t telling…

“Here.” She offered him the cinnamon bun, along with an encouraging smile. “Once you try my goodies, you’ll never even think about anyone else’s.”

Marcus nearly groaned. Did the woman have no sense of what ribald words like that could do to a man?

Evidently, she did not. Neither did she realize what he was truly up to. It was all the luckier for him, Marcus told himself. He’d be finished with this business and back to work in no time.

Putting one hand behind his back as he leaned forward to accept the cinnamon bun, he signaled for his men to begin the next step of his plan. Like magic, lumbermen of all ages and sizes surged forward. They encircled him and Molly, waving fistfuls of money and declaring raging hunger that only her baked goods could assuage.

In the midst of it all, a startled-looking Molly gazed in wonder at the ruckus surrounding her. Then, with a beaming smile, she began selling napkin-wrapped bundles identical to the one she’d given Marcus.

In no time at all, she was left with an empty basket, a fistful of money and an expression of gratitude that, when she turned it on Marcus, made his heart lurch painfully.

“Same time tomorrow?” he made himself ask.

“Yes, indeed!” Molly replied. Still seeming slightly bedazzled, she gathered her things, bade him goodbye and made her way back down the path toward town.

She was hooked.

Indisputably.

But it was Marcus, to his consternation, who felt as though he’d been walloped over the head unawares. Something told him that proving Molly Crabtree was the matchmaker wouldn’t be as simple a process as he’d expected…and neither would making sure he didn’t fall prey to her charms, in the process.

Chapter Three

“I think it’s a mistake, Molly,” Sarah said. “I just can’t reason out why a man like Marcus Copeland would subsidize your bakery business this way.”

“Maybe he has a sweet tooth,” Molly countered.

“Somehow, I doubt it.”

“Perhaps he regrets ignoring my efforts till now.”

“Not hardly.”

“I suppose he may have heard of my baked goods,” Molly mused, “and wanted to try them for himself?”

“Well…” Sarah hesitated, then appeared to think better of disagreeing. “Perhaps. My point is, I think you should be careful. There must be more here than meets the eye.”

Sighing over her sister’s skepticism, Molly put down the square of corn bread she’d been eating. True, Marcus’s abrupt change of heart had seemed a little suspicious at first. But his offer had simply been too good to pass up. Molly was all for anything that helped her bakeshop. It was her pride and joy—or would be, once she made a success of it.

Besides, she generally thought the best of people. Surely Marcus was a good man, or would be, once he let himself be.

She gazed out over the schoolyard filled with laughing, running, playing children, then tapped her heels restlessly against the schoolhouse steps where she and Sarah had met for lunch, bothered by conflicting feelings. Why couldn’t Sarah just be happy for her?

For the past week, Molly had been making daily treks to the Copeland lumber mill, each time with an increasingly heavy basket. Those lumbermen—now those were some fellows with a sweet tooth! They had a surprising quantity of money with which to indulge it, too. It was a plain stroke of luck that Marcus had loosened his stance against letting her sell her baked goods to his men. Whatever his motives had been, she’d be forever grateful to him for setting her on the road toward making a success of her newly launched business.

A brisk September breeze swept over the schoolyard, ruffling the hems of her green worsted gown and Sarah’s yellow calico. Beneath their feet, fallen leaves danced across the white-painted steps, pushed by the wind. Molly shivered and looked again at Sarah.

“Why can’t you just be happy for me?” she asked quietly. “Why can’t you believe in me, and accept that maybe I’m capable of accomplishing something on my own?”

“Of course you’re capable,” Sarah began. She broke off to tell little Wally Brownlee not to capture the girls he was chasing by yanking on their pigtails. More seriously, she said, “I’m just concerned about you, that’s all. We all are. Mama and Papa, and Grace, too. You’re the youngest. You have an impulsive streak. There’s no denying that. I’m afraid it will get you into trouble someday.”

“I’m managing just fine,” Molly told her. All except for the fluttery feeling I get whenever Marcus Copeland comes near. She raised her chin. “I don’t begrudge you your happiness over teaching here at the schoolhouse, nor even all the acclaim you’ll likely get when you manage the Chautauqua next month.”

Sarah blushed at Molly’s mention of the highly anticipated annual event, featuring orators, a concert, plays and picnics, which she had volunteered to organize. If Molly were fortunate, she’d be allowed to host a booth of her own at the pavilion, featuring her baked goods. Participation required approval by the town leaders, but she was hopeful.

Especially now, when she had the patronage of a well-respected businessman like Marcus to rely upon.

But that didn’t mean she cared any less about her family’s opinion. Resuming her earlier argument, Molly said, “Furthermore, I don’t caution Grace about all she’s doing, even though—”

“Nobody cautions Grace about anything,” Sarah broke in.

They shared a laugh. Their older sister was notoriously well-known for taking charge of things—and accepting no arguments, while she did.

“—even though,” Molly continued doggedly, “she must be involved in every women’s group, lecture series and ladies’ aid organization in Morrow Creek.” Drawing in a deep breath, she hoped with all her heart that Sarah would understand the dreams she held so closely. “All I’m asking for is a chance to do something…just once…all on my own.”

At the end of her impassioned plea, Molly looked at her sister. Beside her, Sarah sat, chin in hand, looking at the false-fronted buildings that stood in the distance along Main Street. She sighed. The sound was filled with longing—a soul-deep, romantic kind of longing Molly had never once suspected her sensible bluestocking of a sister might be vulnerable to.

“Why, Sarah! You’re not even listening to me.”

Sarah jerked. She pulled her gaze back to Molly, then picked up the fried chicken drumstick that was all that remained of her lunch. “Of course I’m listening.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I am.” She nodded, took a bite of chicken and chewed vigorously. But still her gaze wandered in the direction of town. “Truly.”

“Humph.”

Curious now, Molly leaned sideways, the better to figure out what held her sister so enraptured. All she could see were the same old buildings—the back side of the mercantile, the church steeple, the various saloons and shops along Main Street…and the blacksmith shop, where a tall, powerfully built man stood beside a water barrel, sluicing its contents over his face and bare chest. Squinting, Molly just managed to make out the dark hair and strong features of Daniel McCabe, a moment before he shook his head and went back to work.

“I don’t believe my eyes,” she murmured.

“Hmm?” Vigorously working away at her drumstick, Sarah didn’t look up. So engrossed was she, in fact, that she failed to notice the wide grin spreading across her sister’s face. “Whatever do you mean?”

“You’re sweet on Daniel McCabe,” Molly said, shaking her head over the sheer obviousness of it. After all, Sarah and Daniel had been friends since their days running up and down the same schoolhouse steps the two women now sat upon. “It’s only fitting, I suppose,” she went on, “considering how close you two have been for all these years. But still—Daniel McCabe? Surely you don’t think a rowdy type like him would be best for—”

“He’s not like that,” Sarah interrupted. “Not on the inside.”

“You know what the matchmaker says—a man’s a man, all the way through, and nothing’s going to change him.”

“Pshaw. I don’t want to change him.”

“I hope not.”

“I don’t want to hear anything else about the matchmaker, either!” Furtively Sarah glanced around the schoolyard to make sure they hadn’t been overheard discussing the subject, then rapidly tucked the remainder of her lunch back into its box. “You know we’ve all agreed not to discuss…the matchmaker…in public.”

“You’re right.” Unable to take the smile from her face at the knowledge that Sarah fancied a beau—especially one so brawny as Daniel McCabe—Molly put away her lunch, as well. They both stood. “I won’t mention you-know-who again.”

“Thank you,” Sarah said primly.

“No matter how much,” Molly continued, “you might need matchmaking services.”

Still smiling, she skipped down the last few steps, looked speculatively toward the blacksmith shop, and then waved goodbye to her sister. It looked as though the Morrow Creek matchmaker might have some very busy days ahead, indeed.

At the mill, Marcus walked between stacks of neatly piled lumber with Smith, his foreman, trying mightily to direct his thoughts toward the business he’d worked so hard to build…and away from a certain blue-eyed baker who was due to arrive at any minute. It wasn’t easy. Ever since Molly Crabtree had begun selling her cookies, tea cakes and cinnamon buns at the mill each day, he’d found himself less and less able to concentrate.

No doubt his inattentiveness was an example of the disruption she caused among his men, Marcus told himself firmly. Once he’d found the proof he needed of her matchmaking activities, his life would return to normal.

He hoped.

Unfortunately, just having Molly nearby had produced inadequate evidence in his investigation. He hadn’t detected any obvious matchmaking activities or inclinations in her. Not so much as a flirtatious glance had passed between Molly and his men as she’d doled out their sweets. If he was to discover her secret matchmaking activities, Marcus realized, he would clearly have to take things a step further…engage her more closely.

Setting that intriguing notion aside for now, Marcus nodded toward a stack of rough-hewn pine ties to his right. “You say this batch is ready to be bundled for the railroad?”

“Sure is, boss,” Smith told him. “Fifteen hundred railway ties for the new express line going down between here and Prescott, exactly as ordered.”

“Good work.” Satisfied, Marcus moved on to the next waiting assortment of lumber, just around the corner. As he did, he reached up to thump the stacked wood. The solid feel of sawed lumber beneath his hand never failed to make the success of his mill feel twice as real. Twice as enduring.

Twice as secure.

The pine boards shifted at the motion. One slid sideways, and something fell from beneath it to the floor below. It rolled, then struck Marcus’s boot.

Frowning, he bent to pick it up. About the size of the baseballs used in the new Morrow Creek league, the object was dense and light brown in color. Marcus raised it higher. Just as Smith paused and turned to see what had delayed his boss, Marcus realized what it was.

A cinnamon bun.

Undoubtedly from Molly’s bakery.

What was it doing rammed amongst the railroad tie shipment?

“Uh, sorry ’bout that, boss.” Smith edged nearer. “Can’t reckon how that got there.”

He grabbed for the cinnamon bun. Marcus held firm.

“Never mind,” he said, scooping up the plain white napkin that had fluttered to the floor alongside the sweet. He wrapped the cinnamon bun inside it and shoved the bundle into his suit coat pocket. Better there than here in the main work area. If the stale bun had fallen from a greater height, it might have brained a man. “How are the sharpeners you hired coming along?”

On the way to their work area, Smith shared a few details about the recently hired men. Just around the corner from where the sharpeners labored to hone the various axes and saws used by the loggers, Marcus spied something else. He stopped. Frowned.

Yes, he’d guessed correctly, he saw as he pried out another napkin-wrapped bundle from between two freshly peeled logs. Another cinnamon bun.

With a disapproving glare around the room, Marcus stowed the rocklike bundle in his pocket alongside the first, then went on with his daily inspection.

“I think the new equipment is working out just fine,” Smith remarked a short while later. They stood side by side, watching thoughtfully as two men directed logs into the splitter Marcus had had shipped in by rail from back East over the summer. “Real nice.”

“Yes.” Burdened by a worrisome feeling he didn’t understand and didn’t much like, Marcus fiddled with the wrapped bundles of cinnamon buns—and a few tea cakes—lining his pockets. By now, his suit was filled fair to bulging with the abandoned sweets. “It’s fine. What about the shipment that came in last week? Jack Murphy might be in the market for some of those pressed-tin ceiling forms for his saloon.”

“Ain’t many of ’em left,” Smith said. Outside, they walked together through the shade of the pines clustered around the lumber mill building, then entered the main work area again. “I reckon we could get some fair quick, though.”

“Good.”

With a distracted feeling, Marcus examined the building and its furnishings. The men all appeared to be working as usual—with the exception of the pair near one of the muley saws. The two bearded mill hands hadn’t noticed Marcus in their midst, which probably explained the fact that one of them was juggling.

Marcus’s frown deepened. Here was proof that letting down his guard—and letting a female into his place of business—had been a mistake. Now the men thought they had leave to indulge in frivolous behavior at all hours. Why had he agreed to join the damned matchmaker search in the first place?

He silenced Smith’s questions about the new work schedules Marcus had been working on, then stalked toward the juggler. Halfway there, he realized the man was not juggling rocks or dirt clumps or any of the other things he’d assumed…he was juggling an assortment of Molly’s molasses cookies.

If she caught wind of this, she’d never be back. He’d never uncover her secrets. With new determination, Marcus crossed the remaining distance between him and the laggard worker.

“I understand,” he said, snatching the cookies from midair as they fell, one by one, from the startled man’s hands, “that you have a pile of logs waiting to be peeled before lunchtime. Isn’t that right, Jameson?”

“Y-yes, sir.” Caught, the man backed up, his mouth agape.

“Then I suggest you cease these childish games. Unless you relish the notion of peeling those logs with your bare teeth, and eating the bark for your noontime meal.”

Jameson clapped his mouth shut. He nodded and, with a mumbled apology, sped toward his usual post with his companion in tow. Ramming the cookies into his pocket along with everything else, Marcus turned to see Smith hurrying to meet him.

“You can make the men buy ’em,” he said, looking dour, “but God’s own angels couldn’t make them eat ’em.”

Marcus glared toward the departing men’s backs. “I paid the men good money to buy these sweets. Money out of my own pocket, damn it! Why won’t they eat them?”

Smith shook his head, as though remembering the plan Marcus had struck upon to bring Molly Crabtree to the lumber mill each day—and deciding upon its foolhardiness, once and for all.

“Have you tried ’em, sir?” he asked.

That was beside the point, Marcus thought in frustration. He needed regular contact with Molly to find out if she was the matchmaker the men’s club members sought. Bringing her to his mill—by whatever means possible—had been the most efficient way to accomplish that. But it wasn’t enough.

“She is a professional baker,” he reminded his foreman. “Surely the sweets aren’t that bad.”

“Hmm.” Sadly, Smith shook his head. Into Marcus’s hand, he pressed a napkin-wrapped bundle he’d confiscated somewhere between the mill’s back door and its center work area, then released its petrified weight. “I reckon you’d better try some yourself.”

For a man who spent his working days surrounded by rough-hewn loggers, Marcus Copeland was a surprisingly well-mannered man, Molly decided on her seventh day visiting the mill. She’d finished selling her basketful of baked goods within minutes of arriving there, and was now being given a tour of the business at Marcus’s side.

“That’s where the skidders drop each load when it’s ready to be milled,” he said, pointing toward a stack of logs waiting to be taken inside.

“My goodness!” Shading her eyes from the noontime sun, Molly looked toward the neatly piled stack. “Look at the size of those logs! You could drive a wagon right over top of that one on the right.”

“Or down the middle, if it was hollow.”

“It must be quite a challenge, cutting all those down. However do your men manage it?”

Marcus shrugged. “Hard work. Teamwork. It’s their job, just like baking is yours.”

Molly couldn’t help but brighten at his words. At last! Here was someone who took her and her ambitions seriously. That Marcus respected her business aspirations encouraged her greatly, even as she struggled more each day to see him strictly as a professional associate.

He was, after all, a very fine-looking and personable man.

He had not, apparently, noticed similarly appealing qualities in her. How had it happened, Molly wondered, that the one man in years she might not have minded admiring her bosoms seemed oblivious to them?

Marcus hadn’t done anything more forward than take her elbow to help her over a patch of rough ground. She hadn’t the faintest idea how to flirt openly so that he might understand how her feelings toward him were broadening. The whole situation was confusing.

She hadn’t felt this out of her depth since she’d decided to become a circus acrobat by reading an illustrated book on the subject. No matter how much she’d concentrated on the pages, her limbs simply hadn’t bent in the proper ways. Now, it seemed, neither did her thoughts. Perhaps, in all her daring endeavors, she’d damaged her feminine wiles somehow.

It was a worrisome notion.

“I’m so glad to hear you say that,” she told him, shoving aside her concerns along with her enjoyment of his steady grasp. “Most people don’t understand why a woman would want to become involved in trade.”

“Especially one like you, I’m sure.”

“Like me? What do you mean?”

“Nothing terrible.” Marcus grinned, undoubtedly at the suspicious expression Molly felt puckering her face. He paused, taking her arm to help her across the gnarled tree roots in their path, then said, “Only that it must come as a surprise to folks that a pretty lady like yourself has time to run a business. Between fending off beaux, and all.”

“Beaux?” Molly laughed, unreasonably delighted by his image of her as the belle of Morrow Creek. The only beaux she had were the unwanted bosom fanciers, who’d chased her since she’d reached womanhood. They hardly counted. “You’re incorrigible, Mr. Copeland.”

“Marcus,” he reminded her.

The warmth in his brown-eyed gaze gave her the same kind of fluttery feelings she’d been beset with ever since their first meeting. Biting her lip, Molly dared a second glance at him as he strode along beside her. Yes, she was definitely smitten with Marcus Copeland.

Smitten, for the first time in her life.

What, she wondered, would the matchmaker advise?

“Very well. Marcus.” She smiled, liking the sound of it. “But what makes a bachelor like yourself think I have so very many beaux, I wonder? It’s not as though I could count you among them.”

“You could.” He stopped, still holding her arm. Slowly he slid his hand down past her elbow, over her forearm, and all the way to her hand. “If you’d allow me to call on you.”

Marcus linked his fingers with hers. For one wild instant, Molly wished away her stylish braid-trimmed gloves. She wished to feel his skin against hers, to measure its warmth and texture, to marvel at the novel sensation of a man’s hand—so much larger and stronger than hers—holding hers closely. But then his words pushed through her thoughts. Their implications went much further than a simple meeting of hands.

“Would you, Molly?” Marcus asked. With a smile that appeared surpassingly devilish for a man as respected as Marcus, he moved closer. “I’m sure the matchmaker would approve.”

“Pshaw. I’m not worried about the matchmaker.”

But she was. A little. Given what she knew about the matchmaker’s activities, she’d vowed never to…no, Molly decided. She wouldn’t worry about that now.

“Then you’ll let me call on you?”

“I don’t know if I should. I’m a businesswoman, after all. A businesswoman who’s engaged in trade here at your lumber mill with your permission. It’s possible that your calling on me will only muddy the waters of our business relationship.”

His smile flashed again. “Surely even business-women need beaux.”

Molly wrinkled her nose. “Strictly speaking, I’m not sure they do. According to my parents, a woman who builds an independent life for herself is free to choose a beau. Or not, as she pleases.”

“Or not?” Marcus pretended shock. “That can’t be your fate. Please, Molly. Twice daily visits to the mill. A Sunday walk. Whatever you choose. I want to see you. I must see you.”

His persistence—his urgency—was flattering, if a little unexpected. Something Sarah had said, about Molly being too inexperienced to deal successfully with a man like Marcus, edged into her thoughts. It was possible her sister was right. But how else to gain experience? Letting herself see more of Marcus might be exactly what she needed, Molly decided.

“Very well,” she told him. “In that case…I have an idea. It will keep things on a businesslike footing between us, too.”

Marcus raised his eyebrows.

Molly went on. “I’ve heard you eat all your meals at Jack Murphy’s saloon. This seems as good an opportunity as any to protest that, in the name of all that’s edible.”

“Murphy’s grub is edible.”

“All right, in the name of all that’s fit to spend time eating, then. If you agree, I’ll use my expertise to tutor you in basic cooking and housekeeping skills. That’s how we’ll see more of each other.”

Marcus looked skeptical. “I’m a bachelor. The last time I tried cooking anything, it was my socks as I boiled them clean.”

Oh, dear. “These lessons will be bachelor-proofed,” Molly promised. “We can meet in the evenings after your mill and my shop are closed. Say, twice a week?”

“A man needs to eat seven days a week,” he reminded her.

“I might be able to manage four days a week.” She pretended reticence.

“Then there’s the fact that there are three meals in each day, which adds up to—”

“Very well, six days a week! Excepting Sundays,” Molly acquiesced. Reluctantly she withdrew her hand from his to retrieve her basket, then straightened. As she did so, the satisfied expression on his face came into view. She couldn’t prevent a smile. “You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Copeland.”

“Marcus. And driving a hard bargain is the way I’ve built my business. These maneuverings between us have been gentle.”

She looked him over, seeing him in a new and unexpectedly dangerous light. This was a man who got what he wanted, Molly realized all at once. Marcus Copeland, for all his fine suits and good manners, was as strong as any man she’d encountered.

She’d better be on her guard, lest he someday maneuver her into offering things she wasn’t prepared to give. Like her independence. Her sense of propriety.

Her untouched heart.

“Of course, if I’m to forfeit five of my evenings a week, plus Saturday mornings before my shop opens, I’ll need a commensurate sacrifice from you,” she said, suddenly driven to take a stand of her own. “Say, help with my accounting practices?” Bookkeeping was, indeed, one of her least favorite tasks.

“You’re a quick study in this bargaining business.” He nodded and delivered her a final smile. “I’ll do it.”

“We’re in agreement, then.” To seal the deal, Molly put forth her hand. “Prepare for a unique learning experience.”

“The same could be said for you,” Marcus told her as he accepted her handshake. “I’ll wager this arrangement might deliver some new experiences to you, too.”

Did he have to look so…masculine when he said that? It was as though Marcus’s words offered a promise she didn’t understand…but might, soon.

“Until tomorrow, then,” Molly agreed, nodding. She adjusted her basket, her hat, and her skirts, taking refuge in the motions as an excuse to avoid the unsettlingly anticipatory light that had brightened Marcus’s dark eyes. What, she wondered, did he know that she did not?

He escorted her to the front entrance. As their time together drew to a close in the same uneventful fashion it usually did, Molly felt reassured. Surely this new arrangement wouldn’t change things between them, she decided.

Then Marcus stopped her as she prepared to leave.

“Be sure to bring your baking supplies and plenty of sugar tomorrow,” he said. His gaze caught hers and held. His rascally grin somehow managed to warm her clean through. “The first thing I’ll be wanting from you is something nice and sweet.”

Oh, my. This arrangement was changing things already.

“I will,” she choked out, then fled to town as fast as was possible without actually seeming to run away.

Thankfully her skirts hid her rapid strides. From a distance Marcus couldn’t hear her breath come faster as it squeezed from beneath her stays. Not for anything would Molly have given him the satisfaction of thinking he’d gained the upper hand with her. The last thing she needed was someone else who thought they knew what was best for her.

Someone else who’d view her dreams with skepticism.

No matter what, Molly vowed, she’d deal with Marcus on her own terms. Sensibly. Rationally. Definitely not impulsively.

Never mind the fact that, if her family could have heard her thoughts, they’d have been laughing their heads off already. Starting tomorrow, she’d show everyone exactly what she was made of. Marcus included!

Chapter Four

M arcus awakened on Saturday morning to a knocking on his front door—and a sense of confusion. He’d been dreaming of Molly Crabtree, dreaming of sugar and spice and enormous flowery hats, and he wanted those dreams to go on. In them, Molly whispered sweetly to him. She moved closer, took his hand, smiled into his eyes as she puckered her lips and…

Tap, tap, tap.

Groaning, Marcus flung back the blankets. His bare feet struck the chilly pine plank floor. For economy’s sake, he banked his woodstove at night. The resultant coals didn’t do much to warm the frosty September morning. Dragging on a flannel shirt and wool britches over his undershirt and drawers, he went to the door.

“One minute. I’m coming.”

If this was one of his men, here to nag him about timber assignments or supplies—both of which were overseen by his designated foremen now—Marcus would have his head. It had been months since he’d handled all the mill’s details himself. Delegating those jobs hadn’t been easy, but he’d done it.

He wrenched open the door, scowling. “What?”

To his surprise, Molly Crabtree waited there. She backed up a step, as though his question had blasted her. Her eyes widened.

Hell. He’d scared her. In his sleep-fogged state, he wasn’t sure what she was doing there at all, but the last thing Marcus wanted to do was frighten her. Jabbing a hand through his rumpled hair, he started to apologize.

Before he’d gotten very far, Molly’s grasp tightened on the basket she carried. Her chin came up. “Good morning to you, too, Mr. Copeland. You passed a late night, I see. Along with the rest of the men in town. My father excluded, of course. He never attends the men’s club meetings.”

She squeezed past him, her eyes bright and her manner brisk. Marcus was too startled by her arrival to protest. In a businesslike fashion, Molly stepped into his house. With a comment about the chill in the room, she maneuvered unerringly past the parlor toward the kitchen. Marcus tried to intercept her—the gentleman in him demanded he carry her basket for her—but she only continued onward, talking all the while.

“In Papa’s opinion, gender-exclusive organizations rarely offer more than shared commiseration and, in the case of the Morrow Creek Men’s Club, shared lager.”

She sniffed suspiciously, as though expecting the tang of liquor to cling to him now, hours later.

Marcus figured it probably did.

“And there’s not a gathering of any sort in this town that goes unnoticed by my sister Grace. If she didn’t organize it, she is at least informed about it. In this case, we ladies could hardly fail to notice the mass exodus of our men to Jack Murphy’s saloon.”

She raised her brows inquiringly.

“There was an emergency meeting last night,” Marcus explained. “Emmaline Jones turned up at O’Neil’s butcher shop yesterday with a Bloomingdale Brothers mail-order catalog in one hand and a pencil in the other. She refused to leave unless O’Neil gave her his opinion on the wedding dresses.”

“But why? Emmaline hardly knows Mr. O’Neil.”

The matchmaker was to blame, of course. But Marcus only shrugged, not ready to broach the subject. “Apparently, she admires the way he wields a cleaver.”

And Molly admired the way Marcus answered a door, he realized. She’d been staring, transfixed, at him ever since putting down her basket on the kitchen table. She looked utterly proper as she stood there, buttoned up and begloved, with a jaunty hat on her head. But there was something wonderfully…speculative in the way her gaze roved along the gap left by his unbuttoned flannel shirt.

He found himself liking it. Perhaps he had been too long without feminine company.

“You’re not prepared for me, Mr. Copeland,” she accused, taking off her gloves.

“I hadn’t expected you so early,” Marcus said, finally remembering their meeting. Molly intended to begin teaching him cooking and housekeeping skills today. “But I assure you—I am prepared for you.”

He smiled, reminded of his dream. “Quite prepared,” he added.

Her eyes narrowed. “You sound as though you’re expecting something far more delightful from me than a simple cooking lesson.”

“From you?” He leaned against the door frame. “I am.”

She seemed to consider that. “Good. Because I have a lot to offer. More than people in this town seem to realize.”

Molly probably meant she had a lot to offer regarding her business ventures, misguided though they were. Marcus knew full well that a woman in trade was an anomaly. Didn’t Molly’s terrible baking confirm that fact?

In all likelihood, Marcus reasoned, her bakeshop was merely a cover for her matchmaking activities. Her shop couldn’t possibly mean as much to Molly as, say, his lumber mill meant to him.

“I don’t doubt you have much to offer,” he said. “You seem a very talented woman to me.”

She paused amidst unpacking supplies from her basket. Something in her expression changed. Molly slanted him a sideways glance. “You needn’t flatter me, Mr. Copeland.”

“Marcus.”

“Marcus. I’ll receive my end of our bargain later, when you help me with my shop’s bookkeeping. This is purely business between us, remember?”

“I remember.” He levered from the door frame and stepped nearer. Why not achieve two goals with these meetings of theirs? Uncovering the matchmaker and renewing his dealings with the fairer sex could both happen at once. “But that could change.”

Molly eyed him. “Not hardly.”

She turned away. He felt unaccountably wounded by her dismissal. He felt even more put out by the way she chose that moment to examine his dusty cast-iron cookstove. Was a hunk of unused black iron more interesting to her than he was?

Impossible.

“You can’t be sure,” Marcus coaxed. “You never know—”

“Oh, I know.” Molly kicked the edge of the stove. She lifted the blackened teakettle. Frowned. “I’m very certain of my feelings.”

“Feminine feelings change. Like the wind.”

“Not mine.”

“I’ve heard otherwise. Some say you’re especially changeable.”

At that, she pursed her lips. Still all but ignoring him, Molly seized the stove handle and opened the oven door to peer inside. “I’d suggest you clean yourself up as befits a proper business meeting. It will take me a while to get this stove ready.”

Marcus frowned. She was issuing orders to him? This couldn’t be happening. He was the man. He was in charge of these proceedings. He would retain the upper hand.

Molly reached into the cold oven. She fished out an old leather boot, then passed it to him with an air of utter disdain. “I believe this is yours?”

“So that’s where it got off to!” Marcus marveled, momentarily diverted. “I stepped in a puddle after that rainstorm last month. I put it in there to dry out.”

“Any longer and it would have become boot jerky.”

She waggled it, giving him a pointed look.

Marcus snatched it. At the motion, Molly’s gaze fluttered over his improper attire and disheveled hair—again. She frowned.

Had he imagined she enjoyed the way he looked? He must have, because now Molly seemed entirely disapproving of him. Doubtless, this matchmaker search was addling his thoughts.

He had to stay the course, Marcus reminded himself. The sooner he uncovered the matchmaker’s identity, the sooner he could have this done. The sooner he could be finished with Molly Crabtree.

He must have been mad to think this bossy, independent-minded woman might be the one to lure him away from his lumber mill and back toward the nonsense of courting, socializing and other ways to waste time. He would do better, Marcus told himself, to find a more amenable, less difficult, woman for that. Molly Crabtree couldn’t have been more wrong for him.

No matter how appealing she seemed, brightening his kitchen with soft pastels and the sweet swoosh of skirts.

Disgruntled, he turned to do as she’d asked.

“Remember to shave,” Molly called after him cheerfully. “And a suit like the ones you usually wear wouldn’t be untoward for our lesson today. It would set the correct tone for the proceedings between us.”

Now she presumed to dress him? Marcus paused. This, he decided, was the final straw. Molly was far too opinionated for her own good. Far too talkative, and far too mannishly industrious. She deserved a lesson in proper feminine behavior. Marcus vowed, right then and there, that he would be the one to offer it to her.

Before he’d finished with her, bullheaded Molly Crabtree—secret matchmaker or not—would learn that a woman did not belong in business, but in a man’s arms. In a man’s life. That was the natural course for females. Setting Molly straight was the least he could do. For the good of men everywhere, Marcus had to take a stand.

Otherwise, who knew what unfortunate knucklehead would someday be blinded by Molly’s beauty, and find himself trapped with a wife who’d rather tally accounts than raise children? With a wife who brought in her own funds? With a wife who commanded her husband to shave?

A female’s natural place was as the light of the home, as the appreciative recipient of her husband’s labors. Marcus could imagine nothing worse than a wife who didn’t need him. He wasn’t ready to fit himself with a marriage noose now, but someday, when he was, he wanted a woman he could pamper. A woman who would wait for him at home, and who would delight in her husband’s attention. Didn’t every man?

Honestly, clarifying this point for Molly would be for her own good.

“Don’t worry,” he told her, pausing near the hallway that led from the kitchen to the second-floor stairwell beyond. A mischievous grin burbled up from someplace inside him. Marcus managed to stifle it. “I know exactly how to handle these proceedings between us. Just wait and see.”

Molly stood by, stiff as a freshly laundered shirtwaist, while Marcus delivered his parting comment. She held her head high as he strode down the hallway out of sight. She felt her hands tremble at the sound of his footsteps on the stairs, followed by the heavy clunk of a second-floor door closing.

She sagged with relief.

What had she gotten involved with? Seeing Marcus this morning, so casually and so intimately, had nearly been her undoing. Molly hadn’t expected to find one of the most proper men in all of Morrow Creek still abed so long after sunrise—much less to find him answering his front door clad in…well, practically nothing!

She was certain his trousers hadn’t been completely fastened. In the gap at the top of Marcus’s waistband, she’d caught a scandalous glimpse of knit underdrawers. And of course, that glimpse had led all the way to a full-on view of his undershirt, plainly visible beneath his open flannel shirt. He hadn’t even had the decency to choose a modest undershirt, one that wouldn’t hug the muscles of his chest quite so closely.

Plainly Marcus Copeland possessed no modesty at all, at least not outside his lumber mill office. It seemed downright unbelievable, but it was true. She would have to be on her guard, lest she find his bachelor influence having an unseemly effect on her. As it was, she knew she might still be blushing.

It wasn’t strictly proper for Molly to be here, after all. An unmarried woman, alone with an unmarried man? Why, if theirs hadn’t been a business arrangement, it would have been quite outrageous. Fortunately, Adam and Fiona Crabtree possessed liberal views, and an abundance of faith in their daughters’ good natures. Had they known about Molly’s mission, they’d doubtless have sent her off to it with their blessings.

She’d left early, though, gathering up her basket of supplies and tiptoeing out before her venture with Marcus could become an issue. Just to be on the safe side.

For all she knew, her family would react to this the same way they had to Molly’s intentions of becoming a cardsharper at the age of twelve—with laughter, jokes and a tip to Deputy Winston about the “gambler” in their midst. After that, Molly had been unable to practice so much as a riverboat-style two-handed double-deal without calling undue attention to herself. Shortly afterward, she’d decided to become a poetess instead, and that had been that.

Pushing aside those memories, Molly prepared to get down to work. She finished unpacking the flour, butter and leavenings she’d brought and arrayed them on the worktable near the sink and water pump. She set a covered pitcher of milk beside them, then carefully removed her hat and placed it atop her basket for safekeeping. She tied on her favorite apron.

All the while, Marcus thumped and bumped upstairs. Water splashed; doors and drawers clunked shut. Once Molly could have sworn she heard the husky melody of a ribald drinking song wafting downstairs. Surely she was imagining things. Marcus Copeland was one of the most upstanding citizens in town. Despite his improper appearance this morning, he wouldn’t dare sing such a tune, especially in the near-presence of a lady.

Would he?

Perhaps she didn’t know Marcus Copeland as well as she thought she did. It was rumored he had experienced all sorts of things while living in an eastern city in the States, before he’d made his way westward to the territory two years ago. Despite his businesslike demeanor, was it possible he possessed hidden qualities no one in Morrow Creek knew about?

Booted footsteps sounded on the stairs. Hurriedly Molly quit gawping at the ceiling. She pretended to be engrossed in searching for a biscuit pan.

“Your home is quite wonderful,” she said conversationally, knowing Marcus would see her industriousness as he entered the kitchen. “So expansive. All the most modern amenities, too.”

She gestured toward the indoor water pump, the grand, if dusty, stove, and the expanse of marble-topped worktable meant to be used for pastry. She didn’t have anything nearly so fine at her bakeshop. Everything in Marcus’s home was covered in the bits and pieces of bachelor life, of course, but that was to be expected with a man like him. It was obvious he needed her help to learn about civilized living.

Boot jerky, after all, was not an appropriate tabletop centerpiece.

Molly averted her gaze from the offending footwear, propped on the worktable where he’d left it, and turned her attention instead upon Marcus.

Shall we get started? she intended to ask. The words faltered on her lips, though, at her first sight of him.

He looked magnificent.

“Do I pass muster?” he asked from the doorway, spreading his arms to indicate his newly clad self. “Or perhaps you’ll want to inspect me at closer range before we begin.”

As though to help her in that regard, he strode nearer. His boots rang against the plank floor. Although his tone had been perfectly solicitous, Molly couldn’t help but find it distinctly at odds with the mischievous expression on his face. Nervously she stepped backward.

How had he accomplished so appealing a demeanor? And so quickly, too? His hair was combed, thick and dark to his collar. His jaw was clean shaven, his clothes…

Molly shook her head. “That, Mr. Copeland, is not a suit.”

It was instead, she saw to her chagrin, an ensemble nearly as revealing as the one he’d answered the door in. A knit Henley-style shirt stretched across his broad shoulders and strong chest, and was crossed in the appropriate places by the braces that held up his trousers. Those, Molly noticed, were the same risqué pair from their earlier encounter.

Holding her breath, she dared to peek.

His britches were fully buttoned.

Sweet heaven. What had gotten into her?

Biting her lip, Molly hurriedly shifted her gaze. Of all the things she’d aspired to become, a loose woman had not been among them.

“I must protest. That, Mr. Copeland, is not proper business attire.”

He grinned. “It’s proper enough for today.”

“I strongly disagree!” Where had all those muscles in his arms and chest come from? The fineness of his physique had certainly never been apparent beneath his customary tailored wool worsted suits and waistcoats. “You look like a lumberman!”

“I was a lumberman. How do you think I began my mill?”

That was neither here nor there. Flustered, Molly tried not to gawk as his smile widened.

“I’m sure you were a wonderful lumberman,” she told him firmly, “but for today, a suit would have been better. Much better. You have such lovely suits.”

Please, put one on, she begged silently. Dressed like this, he seemed much too…not stick-in-the-mud…to her. Like this, Marcus seemed a different man. An approachable, wholly masculine man, unbuffered by formal clothes and the decorous attitude that usually came with them. He seemed very much not like the man who’d been her unwitting nemesis for the past several months…and very much like a man who could make ladies everywhere titter and swoon.

Including Molly, if she weren’t careful.

With shocking casualness, Marcus propped his hip on the tabletop. He regarded her. “I don’t wear suits on Saturday.”

He seemed regretful. Molly was positive that regret was feigned. Behind Marcus’s warm brown eyes, a certain teasing lurked. A smile tugged at the edge of his mouth.

“You shall, for our meetings!” she blurted. “I insist!”

“I’m afraid, Molly, that you’re in no position to insist.”

Lazily, Marcus straightened. An audacious tilt cocked his brow as he came closer.

At his advance, the room seemed to cozy in upon them. Molly found herself stepping backward again. Her bustle squashed against the tabletop, bringing her up short. An instant later, Marcus halted his booted feet mere inches from her own. The warmth of his body reached out to her, along with an unidentifiable fragrance. Soap, surely. And something more?

“Now…are you?” he murmured.

She swallowed, looking upward. “Am I…what?”

“In a position to give orders.” He sent his gaze over her face, seeming to savor the sight of her. “Especially to me.”

Oh, my. Her whole being quivered with a nonsensical urge to agree. To nod her head, to blurt her assent and be done with it. In the shadow of Marcus’s imposing form and surprising force of will, Molly could barely remember what they’d been talking about.

“I’ll wear what I like,” he assured her.

His tone, deep and sure, somehow signified that something greater than mere wardrobe was at stake. Alerted by that tone, Molly felt her usual backbone return.

Time to be brave. Businesslike. Unimpeachably proper.

“Perhaps a hat, then?” she ventured.

He laughed out loud, stepping back a pace. Something akin to respect glimmered in his eyes. “You don’t give in, I’ll credit you that.”

“I do not,” Molly agreed. “Is that a yes?”

“To the question of a hat? No.”

Disappointed, Molly frowned. But she had made progress, she was sure. It was almost as though by standing up to Marcus, she’d passed a test of some sort. Things between them had shifted subtly.

They shifted again when Marcus next looked at her. Speculation enlivened his expression. “All this talk of suits has me thinking of work. But I’m not expected at the mill until noon, and until then the place is in capable hands with my foreman Smith. Why don’t we use this time to take a walk together instead? These things can wait.”

The sweep of his hand indicated the baking supplies Molly had prepared. Dumbly she stared at them, then at Marcus’s broad palm. His hands looked capable, she thought inanely. Masculine. Unreasonably enthralling. She wondered how one of them would feel clasping one of hers.

“You don’t really want to think about a boring business venture like ours, do you?” he went on, his tone persuasive. “Not when the sun is shining and there is leisure to be had.”

His smile coaxed her to agree. Lulled by it, Molly almost nodded. It would be nice to take a stroll, to enjoy the changing colors of the oak leaves outside. Especially with someone whose company she enjoyed by her side.

At times, she did grow lonely in Morrow Creek, where the townsfolk only thought of her as flighty Molly Crabtree, liable to embark on a silly quest at any moment. They didn’t understand that she’d only been searching for something all this time…something that would make her feel whole.

“Your expression says you agree,” Marcus said, breaking into her thoughts. “Excellent.”

He grasped her hand. His fingers, strong and slightly callused, entwined with hers as he tugged her away from the kitchen. The sensation was every bit as enthralling as she’d imagined. Surprised, Molly let herself be led for a moment, her only protest a backward glance at the flour, sugar and milk assembled in a tidy row.

The supplies seemed to offer a silent rebuke. Are you here for a pleasurable stroll? they asked. Or a businesslike arrangement?

She couldn’t very well expect Marcus to help with her dreaded bookkeeping, she realized abruptly, if she didn’t hold up her end of their bargain.

“Wait! You haven’t eaten yet,” Molly said. “I’d planned biscuits with honey for breakfast. The fire is stoked and the oven should be ready soon. Aren’t you hungry?”

“Hungry?” Marcus repeated. As though taken aback by the question, he examined her.

In the process, his regard changed. At first rather hurried, it mellowed into a leisurely perusal that caught Molly by surprise. He did look hungry, she thought—and with a multitude of appetites. Not all of them, Molly expected, could be satisfied with her baked goods. Again she remembered her sisters’ cautioning words.

She may have been a bit…reckless in thinking she could deal successfully with a man like Marcus. Particularly given her unexpected, untoward interest in him.

“Let me worry about that,” he finally said, freeing her from his heated gaze. “Get your hat.”

“No.”

He looked perplexed. On him, the expression seemed a poor fit. Perhaps it didn’t get used often.

“What?” he asked.

“No,” she repeated, pulling her hand from his. She straightened her spine. “I’ll not get my hat.”

He frowned, obviously displeased at her refusal. But why? Surely a walk wasn’t so urgent as all that. Yet Marcus seemed quite put out that she…no. There was something else afoot here. Suddenly Molly was sure of it.

“But the outdoors awaits,” Marcus urged again.

Beyond the glass-paned window he gestured toward, ponderosa pines crowded the small house’s yard. Mixed between them, the slender-trunked oak trees common to the northern parts of the territory brandished multiple-colored leaves. Molly could almost smell the fresh scents she knew the trees carried.

Marcus didn’t glance longingly at the landscape at all, she noticed. It was then that she realized the truth.

“You’re afraid!” She turned in wonderment to face him. She crossed her arms with the conviction of her revelation. “You’re trying to divert me from our tasks because you’re afraid. I can’t believe it!”

“I’m not afraid of anything.”

“You’re afraid of baking.”

“Ha! Ridiculous.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You women and your outlandish ideas.”

“Identify the flour,” Molly challenged, sweeping her arm toward the supplies at the other end of the room. “I dare you.”

“Don’t be childish.”

“He said, glowering,” she teased.

“This is a very unbecoming side of you. Do you think I’m so helpless I can’t pinpoint something so basic as flour?”

Silently she waited. The flour, salt and baking powder were in identical canvas sacks, perhaps eleven inches high and eight inches wide. Molly had sewn them herself, specifically for transporting baking provisions today.

“I think you’re afraid to try,” she said. “Don’t worry. Everyone is uncertain at the beginning.”

“I am never uncertain.”

“That’s something we have in common, then.”

Her pronouncement seemed to goad him into action. With one final, exasperated look, Marcus went to the worktable. He jabbed his finger toward one of the sacks. “This is the flour.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.”

“Then we’ll begin the biscuits with two cups of that.” Molly joined him at the opposite side of the worktable and pointed to the teacup she’d found for measuring. “Go ahead and measure some out, then pour it into that bowl I prepared.”

Marcus blanched.

“Afraid you’ve guessed wrong?”

He scoffed and grasped the teacup. It looked ridiculously fragile in his hand as he scowled into its bowl. He drew in a deep breath, then thrust the teacup into the opened sack he’d chosen.

White powder billowed upward. Molly hoped he liked sour biscuits. She could tell from this distance that the substance held suspended in a stream of sunlight was far too fine to be the rather coarse milled flour she’d purchased at the mercantile. Sugar didn’t waft in a cloud like that. Neither did salt. Marcus had chosen the baking powder.

She waited for him to admit his mistake. He did not.

Instead, he peered skeptically at the teacup, now overflowing with baking powder. His drawn-together brows were frosted with white. The sight might have been humorous, if not for the earnest concentration on the features below them.

Marcus snagged the rim of the earthenware bowl. He dragged it closer. He held the baking powder above it and prepared to empty the teacup.

“Wait!” Molly cried. “I can’t let you do it.”

He gave her a bland, cocksure look. Without taking his gaze from her face, he overturned the cup. Baking powder landed in the bowl with a muffled whump.

Oh, no. This was worse than she’d thought, Molly realized. There would be no reasoning with a man who believed himself capable of everything. She hurried around the table to Marcus’s side.

“That’s baking powder,” she protested, staring aghast into the bowl.

“And…?”

“You don’t need a whole cup of baking powder for this recipe. Unless you’re making biscuits for two hundred people.”

He squinted. “We’ll need a much larger bowl.”

“No, we won’t. We’ll need to start over.”

Marcus gave the bowl an accusing look. “You see? We should have taken that walk I suggested.”

“No, we should have begun at the beginning.” She refused to be swayed. Because Marcus was otherwise so capable, Molly had credited him with too much kitchen competence. But that didn’t mean she intended to give up, or let herself be distracted from her mission. “I can see now that I should have begun with something simpler for you. Something like…”

“Like a walk.”

“Like toasted bread,” she decided.

“I prefer biscuits,” he said stubbornly. “I have biscuits every morning at the Lorndorff Hotel.”

“Every morning?”

He nodded. “Coffee, eggs, an edition of the Pioneer Press, and biscuits.”

“What if you fancy griddle cakes one day?”

“I prefer biscuits,” he said firmly.

Evidently Marcus Copeland was a creature of habit. That masculine trait could work to her advantage, Molly decided, if she handled things correctly between them. She’d simply have to train him properly, and she’d succeed. Magnificently.

“Then it’s biscuits you shall have today,” she acquiesced with a smile. Molly scooped the baking powder from the bowl. She returned it to its sack, then dusted her hands clean. “The eggs and coffee will have to wait for another lesson. But you must agree to do everything I say. To follow my every direction. In this, I’m your instructor. You are my pupil.”

“You are enjoying this far too much.”

“Nonsense.” She hid a smile. “I’m merely doing my part to make our business arrangement work. You’ll find I’m a very determined woman.”

“You’ll find I’m a very poor pupil.” Marcus stared at their baking supplies, hands on hips in a disgruntled pose. “What I’ve learned I’ve learned on my own. I don’t take kindly to being told what to do.”

“Then why did you agree to our arrangement?”

For a moment, Marcus only went on with what he’d been doing—frowning the baking powder into submission. Then he shifted his gaze to her face. He shrugged. “I have my reasons,” he said.

Leaving Molly to wonder, for all the rest of that day, exactly what those “reasons” of his really were.

Chapter Five

M olly Crabtree was a singularly confounding woman, Marcus decided after a morning in her company. She chattered nonstop, but never seemed to reach any kind of conclusion. She smiled reassuringly at him when he made mistakes, yet looked discomfited when he performed his unfamiliar tasks correctly. She gazed at him often, touched him occasionally, and nearly drove him mad with the way she held the tip of her tongue between her teeth while concentrating…but somehow managed to sidestep every flirtatious advance Marcus made.

This last put a serious splinter in his plans. He’d come downstairs that morning intending to use everything at his disposal to end Molly’s cautiousness, win her confidence and extract the truth about the matchmaker from her. He’d expected her to crumble beneath his charm. He’d expected to have her babbling by noon. Instead, he’d survived three hours of biscuit tutorials, with nary a sign of weakening on Molly’s part.

Was it possible he’d found the only person in Morrow Creek who possessed as much stubbornness as he did?

Marcus didn’t think so. After all, it was widely known that women were indecisive creatures, prone to flights of fancy and changing interests. All he had to do was figure out Molly Crabtree, and he’d have this task completed. How difficult could it be, he asked himself, to reckon out one woman’s true nature?

He’d have her tallied by sundown, Marcus vowed. He’d have the matchmaker’s secret delivered to the members of the Morrow Creek Men’s Club by moonrise. Tonight, the rafters of Murphy’s saloon would shake in celebration.

The only trouble was—and Marcus was certain it was but a minor glitch—that she’d put him completely off balance. He could find no logical excuses for Molly’s behavior at all. No matter how he tried, he could not anticipate her actions. She was a puzzle to him.

He should have realized the challenge that lay before him from the first. What kind of woman bypassed a leisurely stroll in favor of work? What kind of woman nattered on about her bakeshop with as much zeal as some ladies discussed quilting? Only Molly.

As the morning wore on, Marcus became uncomfortably certain that, had he waved an issue of Godey’s Lady’s Book in front of Molly’s face, she’d have used it to flatten biscuit dough. She was singular. Confusing. And, he had to admit—however begrudgingly—fascinating to him.

He wanted to figure her out. And then, to best her. Marcus refused to believe there might be any more to his interest in her than that.

“Watch this,” he told her, brandishing a round copper biscuit cutter. “The third time’s the charm.”

“Very well. Have at it.”

Molly gestured toward the flour-dusted rectangle of biscuit dough before them on the worktable. It was their latest batch. The first had yielded breadstuff so tough it had nearly chipped his tooth; the second, flat mounds too brittle to do anything but crumble when touched. Molly had proclaimed herself mystified at the biscuits’ failure. Marcus knew that her lamentable baking skills were likely at fault.

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