Millie (Pendleton Petticoats Book 7) Read online

  The women in the cells quieted, straining to hear what she said.

  “No, Millie. Say it isn’t so.” Lacy embraced her in a comforting hug.

  Sniffling, Millie nodded her head, unable to speak with tears clogging her throat and burning her eyes.

  Kade and Lars both looked to Grant to see if he’d unraveled what Millie said, but the banker shrugged, every bit as confused as they appeared to be.

  “We still don’t understand, Millie.” Baffled, Lars stared at her.

  Lacy rolled her eyes. “She found out Gideon’s been courting her solely for the purpose of distracting her from her temperance work, or that’s what the two men implied.”

  The three men in the office didn’t know what to say to that revelation. None of them believed Gideon capable of that sort of underhanded deception, but they also knew Millie wouldn’t lie.

  “Maybe she misunderstood or misheard the…” Millie’s cold glare silenced Kade. He sighed and looked to Lars. With an unspoken nod of agreement, Kade tossed Lars the keys to the cells then turned to Millie. “I don’t want to hear of you ever, and I mean ever, terrorizing another saloon. Is that clear?”

  She nodded, dabbing at her tears. “I promise.”

  “Good.” Kade patted her on the shoulder before joining Lars at the cells. The two of them lectured the women for a good five minutes before releasing them, threatening to ship them off to prison if they ever again did something like that.

  The women swarmed around Millie, giving her sympathetic hugs and offering words of support.

  Finally, they all left and Kade slumped into the chair at his desk. “Do you want to go talk to Gideon or visit the hospital to see how Drake is doing?”

  Lars lifted his hat from the desk where he’d tossed it earlier and settled it on his head. “I’ll go talk to Gideon. I think he’ll be surprised to find out the reason Millie unleashed that temper on him.”

  “I’m sure he will be. Someone sure enough kicked a hornet’s nest, though.”

  Lars ate up the ground to the Second Chance Saloon with his long-legged stride and entered to find the place fairly bursting at the seams with customers. Word had quickly spread of the temperance committee turning violent and the men had come to offer support to Gideon.

  Abel smiled at Lars and tipped his head toward the kitchen behind him, indicating where he could locate Gideon.

  Lars stepped into the kitchen to find Gideon seated at the table with a frosty glass of sarsaparilla in front of him.

  Gideon looked up with worry lines etched across his forehead. “Have you heard how Drake is?”

  “Not yet. Kade was heading to the hospital to check on him. Last Doc Reed said, he thought he had a couple of cracked ribs and possibly a sprained wrist.” Lars pulled out a chair and straddled it, balancing his hat on his knee.

  “You want a sarsaparilla? I’ve got lemonade if you’d rather.” Gideon started to rise.

  Lars shook his head and motioned for him to remain seated. “No, but thank you. I came to tell you we just released a jail full of women after we finally got Millie to tell us what made her so mad.”

  “And?” Gideon gave him a hopeful glance, anticipating the moment the deputy would explain it was all some sort of mistake.

  When Gideon looked over and caught sight of Millie — his Millie — burying an axe into a whiskey barrel, he could hardly believe his eyes. She wore his favorite shirtwaist, the pink one with the creamy stripes and lace down the front. A white hat with a pink bow and plume set off the midnight shade of her shiny hair.

  However, the sight of her brandishing that axe with her dainty glove-covered hands was branded into his mind.

  Lars sighed. “Millie accidentally listened to a portion of a private call. She overhead two saloon owners discussing how you were supposedly courting her purely for the purpose of distracting her from her temperance work.”

  “Oh, no.” The blood rushed out of Gideon’s head and he felt woozy. Although the saloon owners thought that was the reason he’d courted Millie, it was far from the reality of the situation.

  Lars gave Gideon a long, unsettling look. “Is there any truth to what they said?”

  “Yes. No. It’s not…” Gideon rocked back in his chair and scrubbed his hand across the back of his neck. “Way back in the winter, the saloon owners banded together to keep from being shut down. Through mutual agreement, we decided something had to be done about the temperance committee and came upon the idea of directing Millie’s attention elsewhere. Without her, the group wouldn’t exist.”

  “Agreed,” Lars said, waiting for Gideon to continue.

  “Anyway, I was the one the rest of them voted to court her. The thing is… I went along with their plans because Millie had already caught my eye. I care for her, Lars, more than I ever thought I’d allow myself to care for a woman. All the things I’ve said to her these last few months are true. I didn’t have to pretend to court her because I was, and I wanted to. I just let the fellas think I did it because of the saloon association, not because I love her.”

  Much to Gideon’s surprise and dismay, a bark of laughter escaped Lars.

  “I don’t see what’s funny about this.” Gideon glared at the deputy as the man got to his feet and settled his hat back on his head.

  “Maybe not now, but someday you will. I wish you luck in smoothing things out with Miss Millie and will leave it at that.”

  Gideon continued staring at him. “But, Lars, I’ve never seen her like she was this afternoon. I’ve never seen any woman that angry.”

  Lars chuckled again and shook his head. “You know what they say about a woman scorned.” With that he turned and left, the sound of his jingling spurs filling the silence left in his wake.

  Abel walked into the kitchen and leaned against the counter.

  “You hear most of that?” Gideon asked as his bartender studied him.

  “Sure did. What are you gonna do?”

  “I suppose the first thing I’ll do is try to talk some sense into Millie.”

  Abel chuckled and shook his head. “Good luck with that, boss.” The man returned to the bar while Gideon slipped on a suit coat and settled his hat on his head.

  It took him no time to walk to the telephone office. The door was locked, so he ducked into the alley and climbed the stairs to Millie’s landing.

  He knocked on her kitchen door, wondering if she was home. When he got no response, he tapped louder.

  He leaned over the railing and looked in the open kitchen window, catching her hiding against the wall. “I know you’re in there, Millie. Open this door.”

  “I won’t,” she said, coming to the window. “I have nothing to say to you, Gideon McBride, other than goodbye.”

  “I don’t know what all you heard, or think you heard today, Millie, but it isn’t true. I meant what I said to you the other day, the morning when Miss Caldwell was attacked.” Gideon leaned against the wall near the window. “I would never say ‘I love you’ unless I mean it.”

  “I’m sure you say that to all the girls you pretend to care about. Get off my landing before I call the sheriff and have you arrested.”

  Gideon banged his fist on the door, eliciting a startled squeak out of her. “Millie, open this door and stop all this nonsense.”

  “No. Go away and don’t ever come back again.” He heard the sound of her footsteps as she stomped across the kitchen floor and down the hall.

  Briefly, he considering breaking down the door or swinging out on the railing and climbing in her open window, but discarded both ideas. As worked up as she was, she’d probably make good on her threat to have him arrested.

  Wounded, with an aching hole in his heart, Gideon made his way back to the saloon and sat at his desk, wondering why he thought keeping the saloon open was more important than Millie.

  Too late, he realized she was the only thing worth keeping.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Every attempt Gideon made to apologize to Millie
only served to stir her anger. After a week, he finally gave up.

  To save face, he let the other saloon owners think he’d never cared a whit about her although Drake knew the truth.

  His friend survived the beating the women gave him with only two cracked ribs and a sprained wrist to show for his troubles. Gideon felt like it was partially his fault because if he’d never pretended to court Millie, the whole situation wouldn’t have exploded like a match dropped in a powder keg.

  However, since Millie had decided to hate him with every breath she took, Gideon feigned indifference to her frosty glares and cold attitude toward him.

  As they neared the date of the election, the temperance committee ventured out every weeknight. Gideon often looked out his batwing doors to see Millie and her cohorts standing in front of his saloon, trying to guilt his customers into signing her pledge sheet.

  On the night she stood outside reading a poignant scene from a temperance novel by T.S. Arthur, Gideon hired a piano player who specialized in ragtime music to play for his crowd.

  When Millie and her temperance committee passed out pamphlets entitled Saving our Children from the Devil’s Own Brew, Gideon offered anyone who brought one in a piece of strawberry pie topped with fresh whipped cream.

  The evening the women stood outside and broke into a rousing rendition of Lips that Touch the Whiskey, Gideon gave every man in the bar a free drink. They raised their glasses in a toast, singing along:

  And write on your bonnets in letters that shine,

  The lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine.

  Gideon stepped outside and held up a mug of sarsaparilla in salute to Millie and her temperance committee. When the song ended, his gaze settled on the woman who’d ripped his heart to shreds.

  “Is that song a promise or a threat?” he asked with a broad grin that made Millie battle the urge to slap the dimples right off his handsome face.

  “It’s definitely a promise, Mr. McBride. Lips such as yours shall never, ever touch mine,” she fumed, clenching her skirts with her hands.

  His gaze focused on her mouth and he licked his lips. “You sure didn’t seem to mind them touching yours a few weeks ago. Why, I think the…”

  “You are insufferable!” she huffed, affronted.

  Suggestively, he waggled his eyebrows. “Don’t forget it, Tootsie!”

  His use of the endearment only added fuel to the fire of righteous indignation already burning bright in her chest. She stamped her foot, snatched the mug from his hand, and tossed the sticky liquid in his face. Before he could do more than wipe his eyes on his sleeve, she charged down the street to another saloon. Wide-eyed, the other women trailed after her.

  Lacy and Grant Hill stayed behind. She patted his arm and whispered, “Give her time, Gideon. She’ll figure it out eventually,” before following the rest of the women.

  Grant shook his head and thumped him on the back. “If it’s any consolation, I believe you, Gideon.”

  Gideon nodded and watched Grant trail after his wife. Following Miss Caldwell’s attack, the man became the self-appointed guard of the temperance union. It gave Gideon a little peace of mind to know the women were at least safe under Grant’s careful watch.

  Annoyed yet oddly invigorated by the encounter with Millie, Gideon ambled back in the bar and good-naturedly endured the teasing comments of his regular customers.

  A few days later, Gideon glanced up as Abel strode in with a newspaper in his hand.

  “Have you seen this?” he asked, holding it out to his boss.

  “I glanced through the paper earlier,” Gideon said, setting the paper on the counter, but Abel shook his head.

  “This is a special voting edition. Look at the top story.” Abel spread the paper open on the bar and pointed to a lengthy article about prohibition.

  “I haven’t seen this,” Gideon said, quickly reading the article. At least the reporter was smart enough to see the financial impact prohibition would have on Pendleton. The story cited the city’s income would drop by approximately sixty percent and nearly three hundred people would be left unemployed. In addition, the city would lose more than twenty-five thousand dollars just in liquor licenses alone.

  After reading the article, Gideon wondered how any sane person could vote in favor of prohibition. If it passed, there would be more than thirty buildings sitting empty and numerous families left without any source of income. The town already had all the grocers and cigar shops it could handle. He wondered what the fine women on the temperance committee thought the men would do if they found themselves suddenly unemployed.

  People who wanted to drink would drink regardless, but it seemed like a smart business decision to him to give the men a place to do it. From the time he took over his stepfather’s saloon, Gideon had made it a place for the wealthier men in town to gather and have a drink or two of an evening. He most always closed his doors before midnight, there wasn’t a saloon girl in sight, and the men who played cards there knew better than to cheat. The Second Chance Saloon was a place the upper crust gathered, drank the best whiskey Gideon could supply, and occasionally enjoyed one of his remarkable culinary creations.

  The men who rented the rooms upstairs never had to worry about a loud ruckus lasting half the night or rowdy drunks disturbing them. Gideon ran a respectable, clean business.

  Yet, because of Millie and her gaggle of busybody women, it would come down to voters deciding the fate of his business. Oregon hadn’t yet given women the right to vote. If they had, Gideon had no doubt prohibition would pass by a landslide.

  He glanced through the rest of the special edition of the newspaper. There were informative articles about candidates for both the republican and democratic parties. An article encouraged people to support the armory bill, which would result in a new armory facility in Pendleton. Another article highlighted the staggering costs prohibition would bring to the area, citing national income related to liquor sales of more than three million dollars.

  An advertisement encouraging men to vote down the women’s suffrage movement caught his eye. If Millie had to pick a cause, he sure wished it had been stumping for women getting the right to vote. In truth, Gideon thought they should have been given the right long ago. He could think of many women who were smarter than the men they married. They were perfectly capable of casting an educated vote.

  Unfortunately, he didn’t think the suffrage bill would pass, but the ache in the pit of his stomach almost guaranteed prohibition would. With a beleaguered sigh, he handed the paper back to Abel.

  “I hope the men voting in the election next week read that article. It paints a bleak but accurate picture of what prohibition will do to this town.”

  “I never really thought the women would get it on the ballot,” Abel said, tucking the paper on a shelf beneath the bar and pulling out a pristine waist apron.

  “Considering who led the temperance committee, I’m not surprised. That woman can do anything she sets her mind to, although I don’t understand why she’s made prohibition her personal cause.”

  “My Louella heard some women discussing it. One of them said she thinks it has something to do with Millie’s father.”

  “But aren’t both her parents deceased?” Gideon asked. The one time he’d asked Millie about her family, all she said was that she’d been an only child and her parents were both gone.

  Abel shrugged. “Don’t rightly know, but I assumed they were. She didn’t know a single soul when she moved to Pendleton.”

  Gideon’s memories conjured a picture of a rosy-cheeked girl with black hair and a beguiling smile stepping off the train and looking around Pendleton with a hopeful gleam in her pale blue eyes. He’d been loading a wagon with freight and noticed Millie right off. At the time, he had no idea who she was, but he remembered thinking she was a pretty little thing.

  The problem was he still found her undeniably attractive, even knowing how much she hated him.

  Lacy, Bertie, and
the rest of her friends had tried to reason with her, to assure her Gideon’s affection was true, but she wouldn’t listen to a word they said. If she judged him that harshly and was that fickle, he decided it was better to find out now before his heart mired any deeper in love with her.

  The phone on the kitchen wall jangled and Gideon hurried to answer it.

  “Second Chance Saloon.”

  “Gideon, it’s Archie Cook. I’m calling an emergency meeting. Can you come over here in the morning, say around nine?”

  “Sure, Archie. I’ll be there.”

  “See you then.” Archie disconnected the call.

  Gideon hung up the phone and wondered what new disaster had taken place. Although no more women had been attacked since the incident with Miss Caldwell, Kyle Steel and his cronies had been threatening to do something drastic to the temperance committee. Someone must have warned the women because the committee had steered clear of the seedier saloons in the last week.

  Abel gave him a curious look as he returned to the bar. “Who was that?”

  “Archie Cook. He’s calling an emergency SOAP meeting.”

  Abel snickered. “With a stupid name like SOAP, it’s no wonder the temperance women are winning.”

  Gideon would have argued, but he had to agree.

  The following morning found him at Archie Cook’s saloon along with every other saloon owner in town.

  Once they all were seated, Archie pounded his fist on the bar, calling the meeting to order. “Gentlemen, with the election next week, I do believe it is imperative that we all be as kind and friendly to the temperance committee and members of the Anti-Saloon League as humanly possible.” He turned a cool glare to Kyle Steel. “It is in our best interest not to provoke them any further than they already have been.”

  Kyle jumped to his feet and shook an accusing finger at Gideon. Anger turned his face a mottled shade that nearly matched the purple shirt he wore. “And that worked out so well for us up to this point. I say we scare those women enough they stay home and keep quiet. If we’d done that in the first place, maybe we wouldn’t be facin’ the possibility of prohibition comin’ to Pendleton.”