My Darling Melissa Read Free

said.
    Rafferty chuckled at that, finished unfastening her dress, and then left her to her privacy.
    “You’re better off without this Ajax character,” he observed after some time, when the lamp had gone out. By then Melissa was cuddled deep between the silken sheets of Mr. Rafferty’s bed, clad only in his ruffle-fronted shirt. He was probably sleeping on the narrow bench where she had reclined before.
    Melissa sighed. “I suppose so.”
    “I still don’t understand why you had to run away. You could have explained the whole thing to your family—”
    “But I couldn’t have,” Melissa argued. “Mama and I had had words about Ajax on more than one occasion—she never liked him, you know. And if I’d told my brothers—well, Keith would probably have been civil enough—he’s a preacher, after all—but Adam and Jeff? It doesn’t bear considering. Heaven only knows what they might have done to Ajax.”
    Mr. Rafferty let out a long sigh, as if to show an infinitecapacity for suffering. “So you decided to jump aboard the first train out of town,” he said.
    “Of course not. I was just running, that’s all. And I ended up in the railroad yard, so—”
    A richly masculine chuckle sounded in the darkness.
    “Do you live in Port Hastings?” Melissa asked, wanting to change the subject. “I don’t remember ever seeing you there before.”
    “I make my home on the other side of the peninsula, Miss Corbin. In Port Riley.”
    Melissa settled deeper into the silken sheets. There was a certain rivalry between the two towns, and that added a spark to an already provocative situation. She sighed. “My brothers say that Port Riley will be a ghost town in five years.”
    “Oh, they do, do they?”
    “Yes. To use Jeff’s own words, there’s one piss-ant sawmill grinding out two-by-fours, and that’s it for industry.”
    “ ‘One piss-ant sawmill’?” It was obvious that Melissa had touched a nerve. “I’ll have you know that ’piss-ant sawmill’ is mine, Miss Corbin, and I own one of the biggest timber operations in this state. There are four banks in Port Riley, along with a cannery and a library and a hospital. Until six months ago, there was a newspaper.” He paused and drew a deep breath before finishing grandly, “Furthermore, there are seventeen saloons.”
    “Oh,” Melissa chimed, with prim airiness. “That changes everything. Any community with seventeen saloons is certainly worthy of its position on the map.”
    “Go to sleep, Miss Corbin. Tomorrow will be a long day.”
    Melissa didn’t want to think about the next day—or all the tomorrows that would follow it. And she wasn’t ready to go to sleep.
    “What happened to the newspaper?”
    Rafferty gave an exasperated sigh. “What newspaper?”
    “The one Port Riley had until six months ago.”
    “It was burned out.”
    “By accident?”
    “On purpose. Somebody had a difference of political opinion with the publishers.”
    “Who?”
    “I have no idea, Miss Corbin.”
    “Well, that’s a fine thing. Don’t you have a United States marshal in your town?”
    “Yes, we have a United States marshal in our town,” Mr. Rafferty mimicked. “I think he has his suspicions, but he never came up with any proof. Now, if you’ll just shut your lovely little mouth, Miss Corbin …”
    “I need to talk.”
    Rafferty sighed again. “I think Sir Ajax Whoever may have missed out on a fate he richly deserved.”
    “What is that supposed to mean?”
    “Nothing. Nothing at all. Forgive me,” Mr. Rafferty said wryly. “I lost my head for a moment.”
    “Why are you going to Spokane?”
    Mr. Rafferty groaned. “I have business there.”
    “What kind of business?”
    There was a short, deadly silence, but the answer, when it came, was quite reasonably stated. “I mean to deposit you in a hotel, then contact your family and let them know that you’re all right. After that I will meet with some business partners of mine—”
    “I am not