Maggie was working at the hotel dining room and didn't get off until sometime after ten o'clock. Strange as it sounded that only left me with June Morgan or Rally to talk to. I was afraid that I'd only confuse June, so I went back to Doc Demmers office. I think he'd finally gotten used to me coming in because he'd given up the 'Mr. Maverick' and called me what I'd asked him to the previous two times – Bart. "Back for another visit with Rally?" he asked when he realized it was me.
"Yes, sir, how is he today?"
"Better than yesterday," was Doc's answer. He didn't bother with the warning today, and I figured that was a good sign. I walked into the exam room just as June was getting ready to leave. "See, Rally, you won't be alone. Bart will be here with you until I get back. Won't you, Bart?"
"Where ya goin', June?"
"Home to get a book. I'll be right back."
I nodded. "Sure. I'll be here."
Once she was gone and the door was closed, I sat down. "Getting real regular, aren't you, Maverick?"
"Yep. Still tryin' to put all the pieces of the puzzle together."
"Didn't know I was a puzzle," Rally almost chuckled. "Ouch."
"Yeah, don't laugh. It'll hurt too much."
He shifted his eyes to take a good look at me. "You sound like you know what this feels like."
"I do."
"Somebody tried to kill you?"
'More than once,' I thought. Out loud I said "Yep. Pistol whipped. Wasn't supposed to live. I had somebody that sat at my bedside, too. That's not what I came here to talk to you about."
"No, I guess not."
I leaned forward to get closer so we could talk as quietly as possible. "I had a nice, long chat with Clara Farrel this morning."
"With Mrs. Farrel? Why?"
"Because you wouldn't tell me who did this to you."
"I told you it wasn't Johnny."
"Yes, I know. But you wouldn't tell me who it was."
"That hasn't changed."
The next one caught him by surprise. "A woman in a buggy met you at the edge of the Farrel property."
"Where'd you get that?"
"From Clara Farrel."
"She's a gossip."
"She may be a gossip, but she's telling the truth, isn't she, Rally?"
"She's wrong."
I watched him as his eyes darted back and forth like he was frantically looking for a way out of this. And he got one, temporarily, because June returned with a book and a smile on her face. She waltzed into the room, bent over and kissed him on the cheek. Then she stood on tiptoe and kissed me in the same spot. "My two favorite men."
This was a different June, a transformed woman. She was sweet, and sincere, and self-assured; not scatter-brained and odd the way she'd been when we first met. Maybe it was because she knew, at last, that Rally cared for her the way she cared for him. Something had soothed and calmed her, and the change was noticeable. I wasn't about to say or do anything that affected the new June in any way.
My cue to leave. "Take good care of him, June, we need him back at the poker table."
"I will, Bart. Thanks for sitting with him."
That didn't solve my problems. I still needed to work this out, and I was getting nowhere fast. Clara Farrel had been telling the truth; it was indeed a woman that met Rally at the edge of the property. Now I needed to find out which woman.
XXXXXXXX
I paid a lot more attention to poker that night. I'd played so badly the night before that I had no intention of losing two nights in a row. Fortunately, Lady Luck gave me some good cards and I made the most of them. By about the third or fourth hour of the game, Calvin spoke up and said, "I knew it was too good to last."
"What's that, Calvin?" came from Zeke.
"Bart losing for a second straight night." Everybody at the table laughed, including me.
I tried to concentrate on the game and not all the questions that threatened to envelop me. I did a pretty good job of that, considering all the voices I could hear clamoring for attention.
It was almost six o'clock when everybody finally had enough of losing and we called it a night. I was ready for the day to be over but had one more stop before I went back to the hotel. Maggie Sawyer's.
She was up and waiting for me. I wanted to take her out for breakfast, but she had other plans. So once again I sat and drank coffee, this time in the kitchen, while she cooked for us. Maggie told me about her night and we laughed over some of the things that seemed to happen only to her. The full-time job at Minnie's had finally come through, and she was taking a day off before she started her regular shift, from ten at night until six in the morning. "Isn't that gonna be hard to get used to?" I asked her.
By that time we were on the settee, Maggie sitting drinking coffee and me lying down with my head in her lap. "Doesn't make any difference," she told me. "At least that way I'll be awake when you are. It might give us more time to . . . . . . "
"To do what?" I teased her.
"Anything we want to," she answered, and leaned down to kiss me. It was a sweet kiss, a good strong statement of . . . . . what? I didn't know. Was I falling in love with this girl? Not sure. Was she falling in love with me? Not sure about that either. We had fun together, enjoyed each other's company. It was comfortable spending time with her. That's about all I knew for sure. That was good enough for now.
It didn't take much for me to fall asleep, and before long I did so. Bless her heart, she sat there with my head in her lap and let me sleep for almost two hours without moving. When she finally did move and I woke up, it didn't take much persuading to get her to lie down and let me hold her close. Within minutes we were both asleep and stayed that way most of the morning.
The next thing I heard was the clock chiming noon. She was still in my arms and I kissed her nose and whispered, "Maggie, it's twelve o'clock already."
"Mmmm-hmmm," was the answer I got, but she'd said something earlier about going to the store for supplies and I wanted to help her. If I was gonna continue eating her food the least I could do was pay for some of that same food and carry it home for her.
"Maggie, come on. It's time to get up and go shopping." That seemed to stir her.
Her blue eyes came open and looked at me. They were so close I could kiss them, and I did. Then I kissed that beautiful mouth, and all the voices that had been clamoring for attention in my head shut up and left me alone. There was only one voice I wanted to listen to, and it belonged to the woman lying in my arms.