LOST - PART I
A PLAN
Chapter 20
Adam and Nate were hard at work in the storeroom at the club organizing the inventory more efficiently while a part-time bartender was working out front. The two men were chatting about a story Adam had heard from an older Pinkerton detective the day before. Nate was laughing so hard at one point, he set his side of a crate down too quickly, causing the other side to slip out of Adam's hands and bang down on his foot.
"Damn it!" Adam growled at his friend as he quickly lifted his side just far enough to get his foot out. Then he hopped over to lean against the wall and pull his boot off. He slid down to sit and carefully felt his foot, looking for broken bones. Nate was trying to stop laughing, but couldn't, not even when the other man gave him one of his darkest looks.
"I'm sorry!" Nate sputtered and came over to sit next to Adam, still choking on laughter.
"I know you're sorry, but would you PLEASE try to be a little more careful? The last thing I need is any more broken bones!"
Nate instantly sobered and frowned. "Are you all right?" he asked and his friend nodded.
"Yes, nothing's broken. But it sure as hell felt like something did."
"You better have Thea take a look at your foot when you get home," Nate offered.
Adam nodded as he pulled his boot on and was about to speak again when they heard two male voices approaching. They glanced at each other, narrowly. No one but employees were supposed to be in the back hallway.
"I'm telling you Mike, it's a stupid idea." The first voice sounded young and mild.
"Come on Johnny, don't be such a chicken. Do you have any idea the kind of money we'd get from the bounties? Pritchard has a thousand on his head alone!" The second voice was deeper with a faint Irish lilt.
"Look, you're talking about going down south, infiltrating a gang, and somehow gathering them all up. And that final point is the one you're not being very clear on. How the hell do we turn them over to the law? Seems to me that's the most important part, not to mention the most dangerous!"
"Well I don't know how we're going to bring them in yet, but trust me. I'll think of something."
"Let me put it this way," the young voice said patiently. "I'm not going anywhere or doing a damn thing until you come up with that last part. And it better be damn good, too!"
"Alright, alright!" the deeper voice grumbled. "Instead of nit-picking you could try to come up with an idea of your own, you know." The man sighed. "I just don't want to pass up this opportunity. Do you realize we'd be splitting close to seven thousand dollars?"
Adam and Nate glanced at each other again, surprised. That was a hell of a lot of money.
"I know, and do YOU realize you're talking about bringing in fifteen men?"
Mike made a frustrated sound. "Yeah, that's true." The two started moving away down the hall. "But it seems such a shame not to at least try."
"I swear, sometimes it seems like you have a death wish Mike," John was saying with laughter in his tone as they moved out of earshot.
The two men in the storeroom sat there in silence for a while until Adam took a deep breath and turned his head to look at Nate. He was smiling widely and his eyes were shining with a strange light.
Nate stared back and his heart sank, reasonably sure of what the other man was going to say.
"Nathan," Adam said low while meeting his friend's eyes with an intense stare. "I have a plan."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~
The next afternoon Nate, Adam, Glory and Thea were gathered in the sitting room, tired from being up incredibly early to see Abner off to England. The parting had been particularly difficult for Thea. She had quickly become extremely fond of the strong, intelligent, easy-going man. He had become family to her and her heart was heavy, as though she had waved goodbye to a brother. She could tell by the solemn expressions the others were wearing that they felt the same way. And she finally acknowledged to herself that they would probably never see Abner again.
Sighing, she turned her thoughts to Olivia, who had left on the train the day before with her aunt. They had gone to visit relatives in Connecticut and expected to be gone for at least a month. Thea shivered in spite of the warmth of the evening and wondered why she had a feeling that things would never be the same again - that the departure of Abner and Olivia was just the beginning.
She looked up to see Adam and Nate intently discussing something with Glory. And judging by the other woman's expression, she was not happy about the subject. Thea sat up straighter and her heart began to beat faster when all three turned their heads to look at her, their expressions unreadable.
Nate and Glory came to sit on either side of her on the sofa while Adam came to sit on the low table in front of her. He reached out to take her hands in his. She swallowed hard against the lump that suddenly formed in her throat.
"Thea," Adam said quietly, "Nate and I will be leaving town for a while." She stared at him silently, unable to breathe for a few moments.
"Why?" she finally managed to say from an incredibly tight throat.
"An opportunity came our way to make a great deal of money in a short time and we both feel it would be stupid not to take advantage of it."
"What kind of an opportunity?" she asked as her eyes narrowed.
"Well, we hope to bring in a group of wanted men to collect the rewards."
Her eyes went wide with fury and disbelief. "Bounty hunting? You're talking about going bounty hunting?"
"You can call it bounty hunting, but it won't be like that. We have a good, solid plan about how to do this and it won't be as dangerous as you think."
"Oh really?" she said, her voice sharp with sarcasm. "How many men?"
Adam glanced at Nate, who quickly shifted over to sit beside him. "Fifteen," the blonde man answered her question.
"FIFTEEN!" she nearly shrieked and both men winced at the sharp sound. Nate hurried to reassure her.
"Thea, I was dubious about it at first too, but I think Adam knows what he's doing. The plan is simple enough to be foolproof."
She jerked her hands out of Adam's grasp and fisted them in her lap. "You think so, huh? Well what about you two fools?"
Glory gasped at Thea's harsh words and caught Nate's eye. She jerked her head toward the door and the two stood to leave and give them privacy to fight this out. Adam watched them go, and then turned his attention back to her.
"I know you're upset, but you have to learn to trust me." She took a deep breath and let it out angrily.
"Trust you? How can I trust you when you're sitting there talking about leaving me?" Her face was bright red with her anger and he suddenly realized there was much more to her reaction than he had thought.
"I'm not leaving you, Theadora. I give you my word that I will come back," he said patiently.
"Sure you will," she spat at him and his eyes widened at the venom in her tone.
"I will," he answered her firmly, but she shook her head.
"You know, you almost had me believing in you, but it looks like you're no different than all the rest."
"What ARE you talking about?" he said with some heat, his temper sparking at her disbelief.
"Men. I'm talking about men. All of you do the same thing, you worm your way into a woman's heart and then disappear when you lose interest."
"WHAT?" he almost shouted and suddenly they were both standing and glaring at each other. "I ASKED you to marry me, damn it! You're the one that won't make a commitment!"
"How can I!" she shouted back, "I'm already married!"
Adam gasped and stared at her, his face going completely white at first, and then the deepest shade of red she had ever seen.
"What did you say?" he demanded, his voice deep and dark with fury.
Thea's face had gone white too and she hastily tried to explain. "I WAS married. When I was seventeen. Doc signed me over to an older man - I didn't have any say in the matter."
"Then where is he?" Adam ground out through clenched teeth.
"He's dead," she answered and abruptly sat back down, her knees were shaking uncontrollably.
Adam started to relax and took a deep breath before seating himself on the low table again. "What happened?" he asked her wearily and she hung her head to look at her hands clasped in her lap.
"The man was a fortune hunter and fixed his sights on me when I 'came out'."
"Came out?"
"Yes, that's what they call it when a young woman comes out in society for the first time. I wasn't interested in doing that, but Doc insisted and asked a friend of the family to sponsor me." She paused to take a few deep breaths to steady her voice.
"I was lucky that he chose Millie, Lady Millicent Danvers, because she understood why I wasn't interested in joining the social whirl and hunting for a husband." The corners of her mouth lifted slightly as she remembered her friend.
"So we would show up at the beginning of each social function and then leave incredibly early. Doc didn't really pay any attention once he turned me over to her, so we were able to get away with that for almost the whole season. But one night Millie was cornered by an old friend and couldn't get away. I couldn't leave by myself so I had to join in. That's when Hugh made his move."
She reached up to rub her temples as a splitting headache began to bloom behind her eyes. "I almost refused his invitation to dance, but he seemed so mild-mannered that I thought it wouldn't do any harm. The next thing I knew he had dragged me out into the garden and attacked me."
Adam found himself becoming furious again at the scene she was describing so he ground his teeth and tamped down his anger. She glanced up at him through her lashes and he realized she was horribly embarrassed by this story, but was determined to tell him all.
"We were caught in what is politely called a 'compromising position'. Then he told Doc that he 'had' to marry me and put on an act, playing the part of the innocent man who had been roped into marriage. God I hated him so much! But Doc wouldn't listen to anything I said, he just dragged me home to the family seat and arranged for the marriage to take place there the next day. He even locked me in my room."
She paused again to glance up at him, so he carefully kept the rage that was burning in his heart from showing on his face.
"Hugh dragged me upstairs, right after the ceremony and attacked me again! So I did the only thing I could think of to do. I grabbed the nearest thing I could reach and bashed him in the head. Then I ran, and I ran to the only person I knew would help me."
"Millie?" he asked quietly and she nodded.
"We figured the wisest course of action was to leave the country. So we came here to New York and it took Doc about four years to find me and when he did, he told me Hugh was dead. So I was free of Hugh and of an age where Doc couldn't do anything like that to me again, so I went back to England with him. I guess that's why when he died I came back and have lived here ever since."
She finally tipped her face up toward him and saw he was shaking his head. "I can't be absolutely positive, but I think that man is the first person I've hated that I've never met." Thea stared at him blankly for a moment, and then gave him a trembling smile.
"I'm sorry," she said earnestly. "I didn't really mean what I was saying."
"I know," he answered and moved to sit next to her on the sofa. He put his arm around her shoulders and she let her head fall back against him.
"This may not be the best time to say this, but I feel I have to. Theadora, I want you to think long and carefully about marrying me." She stiffened.
"I don't think I can." she was saying reluctantly when he sighed.
"I'll take that as another 'no', but I still want you to think about it while I'm gone."
"When are you leaving?" she asked and a quick sheen of tears came to her eyes when he said, "Tomorrow."
"Do you have to leave so soon?"
"Yes we do. Timing is a very big part of the plan, so we have no choice. But understand I mean what I say. I WILL come back." Sighing, Thea nodded and finally let herself relax against him.
Adam tightened his hold on her. "You know, the more I hear about Doc the more I wish he was still alive so I could kill him." That startled a quick laugh out of her and he smiled, having made that outrageous statement hoping amusement would be her reaction.
They stayed on the sofa for a long time, talking about whatever other subjects that came to mind, comfortable in their solitude, not needing anyone else.
A PLAN
Chapter 20
Adam and Nate were hard at work in the storeroom at the club organizing the inventory more efficiently while a part-time bartender was working out front. The two men were chatting about a story Adam had heard from an older Pinkerton detective the day before. Nate was laughing so hard at one point, he set his side of a crate down too quickly, causing the other side to slip out of Adam's hands and bang down on his foot.
"Damn it!" Adam growled at his friend as he quickly lifted his side just far enough to get his foot out. Then he hopped over to lean against the wall and pull his boot off. He slid down to sit and carefully felt his foot, looking for broken bones. Nate was trying to stop laughing, but couldn't, not even when the other man gave him one of his darkest looks.
"I'm sorry!" Nate sputtered and came over to sit next to Adam, still choking on laughter.
"I know you're sorry, but would you PLEASE try to be a little more careful? The last thing I need is any more broken bones!"
Nate instantly sobered and frowned. "Are you all right?" he asked and his friend nodded.
"Yes, nothing's broken. But it sure as hell felt like something did."
"You better have Thea take a look at your foot when you get home," Nate offered.
Adam nodded as he pulled his boot on and was about to speak again when they heard two male voices approaching. They glanced at each other, narrowly. No one but employees were supposed to be in the back hallway.
"I'm telling you Mike, it's a stupid idea." The first voice sounded young and mild.
"Come on Johnny, don't be such a chicken. Do you have any idea the kind of money we'd get from the bounties? Pritchard has a thousand on his head alone!" The second voice was deeper with a faint Irish lilt.
"Look, you're talking about going down south, infiltrating a gang, and somehow gathering them all up. And that final point is the one you're not being very clear on. How the hell do we turn them over to the law? Seems to me that's the most important part, not to mention the most dangerous!"
"Well I don't know how we're going to bring them in yet, but trust me. I'll think of something."
"Let me put it this way," the young voice said patiently. "I'm not going anywhere or doing a damn thing until you come up with that last part. And it better be damn good, too!"
"Alright, alright!" the deeper voice grumbled. "Instead of nit-picking you could try to come up with an idea of your own, you know." The man sighed. "I just don't want to pass up this opportunity. Do you realize we'd be splitting close to seven thousand dollars?"
Adam and Nate glanced at each other again, surprised. That was a hell of a lot of money.
"I know, and do YOU realize you're talking about bringing in fifteen men?"
Mike made a frustrated sound. "Yeah, that's true." The two started moving away down the hall. "But it seems such a shame not to at least try."
"I swear, sometimes it seems like you have a death wish Mike," John was saying with laughter in his tone as they moved out of earshot.
The two men in the storeroom sat there in silence for a while until Adam took a deep breath and turned his head to look at Nate. He was smiling widely and his eyes were shining with a strange light.
Nate stared back and his heart sank, reasonably sure of what the other man was going to say.
"Nathan," Adam said low while meeting his friend's eyes with an intense stare. "I have a plan."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~
The next afternoon Nate, Adam, Glory and Thea were gathered in the sitting room, tired from being up incredibly early to see Abner off to England. The parting had been particularly difficult for Thea. She had quickly become extremely fond of the strong, intelligent, easy-going man. He had become family to her and her heart was heavy, as though she had waved goodbye to a brother. She could tell by the solemn expressions the others were wearing that they felt the same way. And she finally acknowledged to herself that they would probably never see Abner again.
Sighing, she turned her thoughts to Olivia, who had left on the train the day before with her aunt. They had gone to visit relatives in Connecticut and expected to be gone for at least a month. Thea shivered in spite of the warmth of the evening and wondered why she had a feeling that things would never be the same again - that the departure of Abner and Olivia was just the beginning.
She looked up to see Adam and Nate intently discussing something with Glory. And judging by the other woman's expression, she was not happy about the subject. Thea sat up straighter and her heart began to beat faster when all three turned their heads to look at her, their expressions unreadable.
Nate and Glory came to sit on either side of her on the sofa while Adam came to sit on the low table in front of her. He reached out to take her hands in his. She swallowed hard against the lump that suddenly formed in her throat.
"Thea," Adam said quietly, "Nate and I will be leaving town for a while." She stared at him silently, unable to breathe for a few moments.
"Why?" she finally managed to say from an incredibly tight throat.
"An opportunity came our way to make a great deal of money in a short time and we both feel it would be stupid not to take advantage of it."
"What kind of an opportunity?" she asked as her eyes narrowed.
"Well, we hope to bring in a group of wanted men to collect the rewards."
Her eyes went wide with fury and disbelief. "Bounty hunting? You're talking about going bounty hunting?"
"You can call it bounty hunting, but it won't be like that. We have a good, solid plan about how to do this and it won't be as dangerous as you think."
"Oh really?" she said, her voice sharp with sarcasm. "How many men?"
Adam glanced at Nate, who quickly shifted over to sit beside him. "Fifteen," the blonde man answered her question.
"FIFTEEN!" she nearly shrieked and both men winced at the sharp sound. Nate hurried to reassure her.
"Thea, I was dubious about it at first too, but I think Adam knows what he's doing. The plan is simple enough to be foolproof."
She jerked her hands out of Adam's grasp and fisted them in her lap. "You think so, huh? Well what about you two fools?"
Glory gasped at Thea's harsh words and caught Nate's eye. She jerked her head toward the door and the two stood to leave and give them privacy to fight this out. Adam watched them go, and then turned his attention back to her.
"I know you're upset, but you have to learn to trust me." She took a deep breath and let it out angrily.
"Trust you? How can I trust you when you're sitting there talking about leaving me?" Her face was bright red with her anger and he suddenly realized there was much more to her reaction than he had thought.
"I'm not leaving you, Theadora. I give you my word that I will come back," he said patiently.
"Sure you will," she spat at him and his eyes widened at the venom in her tone.
"I will," he answered her firmly, but she shook her head.
"You know, you almost had me believing in you, but it looks like you're no different than all the rest."
"What ARE you talking about?" he said with some heat, his temper sparking at her disbelief.
"Men. I'm talking about men. All of you do the same thing, you worm your way into a woman's heart and then disappear when you lose interest."
"WHAT?" he almost shouted and suddenly they were both standing and glaring at each other. "I ASKED you to marry me, damn it! You're the one that won't make a commitment!"
"How can I!" she shouted back, "I'm already married!"
Adam gasped and stared at her, his face going completely white at first, and then the deepest shade of red she had ever seen.
"What did you say?" he demanded, his voice deep and dark with fury.
Thea's face had gone white too and she hastily tried to explain. "I WAS married. When I was seventeen. Doc signed me over to an older man - I didn't have any say in the matter."
"Then where is he?" Adam ground out through clenched teeth.
"He's dead," she answered and abruptly sat back down, her knees were shaking uncontrollably.
Adam started to relax and took a deep breath before seating himself on the low table again. "What happened?" he asked her wearily and she hung her head to look at her hands clasped in her lap.
"The man was a fortune hunter and fixed his sights on me when I 'came out'."
"Came out?"
"Yes, that's what they call it when a young woman comes out in society for the first time. I wasn't interested in doing that, but Doc insisted and asked a friend of the family to sponsor me." She paused to take a few deep breaths to steady her voice.
"I was lucky that he chose Millie, Lady Millicent Danvers, because she understood why I wasn't interested in joining the social whirl and hunting for a husband." The corners of her mouth lifted slightly as she remembered her friend.
"So we would show up at the beginning of each social function and then leave incredibly early. Doc didn't really pay any attention once he turned me over to her, so we were able to get away with that for almost the whole season. But one night Millie was cornered by an old friend and couldn't get away. I couldn't leave by myself so I had to join in. That's when Hugh made his move."
She reached up to rub her temples as a splitting headache began to bloom behind her eyes. "I almost refused his invitation to dance, but he seemed so mild-mannered that I thought it wouldn't do any harm. The next thing I knew he had dragged me out into the garden and attacked me."
Adam found himself becoming furious again at the scene she was describing so he ground his teeth and tamped down his anger. She glanced up at him through her lashes and he realized she was horribly embarrassed by this story, but was determined to tell him all.
"We were caught in what is politely called a 'compromising position'. Then he told Doc that he 'had' to marry me and put on an act, playing the part of the innocent man who had been roped into marriage. God I hated him so much! But Doc wouldn't listen to anything I said, he just dragged me home to the family seat and arranged for the marriage to take place there the next day. He even locked me in my room."
She paused again to glance up at him, so he carefully kept the rage that was burning in his heart from showing on his face.
"Hugh dragged me upstairs, right after the ceremony and attacked me again! So I did the only thing I could think of to do. I grabbed the nearest thing I could reach and bashed him in the head. Then I ran, and I ran to the only person I knew would help me."
"Millie?" he asked quietly and she nodded.
"We figured the wisest course of action was to leave the country. So we came here to New York and it took Doc about four years to find me and when he did, he told me Hugh was dead. So I was free of Hugh and of an age where Doc couldn't do anything like that to me again, so I went back to England with him. I guess that's why when he died I came back and have lived here ever since."
She finally tipped her face up toward him and saw he was shaking his head. "I can't be absolutely positive, but I think that man is the first person I've hated that I've never met." Thea stared at him blankly for a moment, and then gave him a trembling smile.
"I'm sorry," she said earnestly. "I didn't really mean what I was saying."
"I know," he answered and moved to sit next to her on the sofa. He put his arm around her shoulders and she let her head fall back against him.
"This may not be the best time to say this, but I feel I have to. Theadora, I want you to think long and carefully about marrying me." She stiffened.
"I don't think I can." she was saying reluctantly when he sighed.
"I'll take that as another 'no', but I still want you to think about it while I'm gone."
"When are you leaving?" she asked and a quick sheen of tears came to her eyes when he said, "Tomorrow."
"Do you have to leave so soon?"
"Yes we do. Timing is a very big part of the plan, so we have no choice. But understand I mean what I say. I WILL come back." Sighing, Thea nodded and finally let herself relax against him.
Adam tightened his hold on her. "You know, the more I hear about Doc the more I wish he was still alive so I could kill him." That startled a quick laugh out of her and he smiled, having made that outrageous statement hoping amusement would be her reaction.
They stayed on the sofa for a long time, talking about whatever other subjects that came to mind, comfortable in their solitude, not needing anyone else.