The Marrying Kind Read Online Free PDF Page B

manage the task, but she had to try. After all, what did she have to lose at this point?
    She'd vowed at her father's graveside, had she not, that she'd hang onto the Tribune as long as possible? And hadn't she promised her mother she'd do anything to help fight for equal rights—anything at all?
    Then for what, Libby had to ask herself, was she standing around waiting?

 
     
     
    Chapter 3

     
    Several hours later, as the train roared on toward Utah and beyond to California, Donovan strolled up to a small counter at the south end of the drawing-room car that served as a bar, and ordered himself a tall shot of Irish whiskey. Glancing behind him as he waited for his drink, he briefly studied the few men occupying plush leather chairs and tables that lined the windows on both sides of the car. Most were enjoying an after-dinner cigar and a brandy, he noted, but none looked particularly interesting or well-fixed enough for him to consider approaching for a friendly little game.
    Just as well, he thought, turning back to the bar to find his drink sitting there on the glass top. He wasn't really in the mood for poker, or games of any kind, now that he thought about it. Not after the way his little "game" with Liberty Ann Justice had turned out. When he walked out of the Tribune's office, her ashen features and stricken expression had nearly undone him. Since he'd boarded the train, he'd been thinking about her almost constantly. He felt sorry for her one minute, full of admiration for her the next, and every blasted second of those minutes he also felt guilty as hell for running out on her. Before he'd left town, he even thought of telling the truth—again. He'd strongly considered informing her who he really was, complete with a guarantee that he wouldn't breathe a word of what he'd learned about her father to anyone in San Francisco. But at the last minute, he'd changed his mind. What the hell good would it have done anyway? Gritty or not, Libby couldn't hope to fool Savage Publishing forever. His confession would only have delayed the inevitable—and made him look like an idiot.
    Hell, she hadn't even been able to fool him, Donovan thought, recalling the way she'd carried on after supper last night. On the walk home, she'd abruptly turned into a fluttering female, acting as if Cupid had suddenly fired an arrow into her conniving little heart. He'd been amused at first by Libby's awkward, hesitant gestures, and damned if he didn't have to admit that he'd been a little inflamed by them, too. But those amateurish efforts to sway him to her side also irritated him. She hadn't been trying to impress William Donovan. Her act had been for another man: rich, powerful— dead —Andrew Savage.
    Donovan sighed with regret, or something akin to it, then picked up his drink. He was definitely in a rare mood, one he figured would probably require at least a full week's intake of Irish whiskey—all in one night. He tossed down the liquor in one gulp, shuddered from his teeth to his toes, then gripped the edge of the bar.
    "Damn, that's good," he muttered. "Fix me up another one, would you?"
    The bartender just smiled and spun a quarter on the counter in front of Donovan. Waiting until the coin had worn itself out and clattered noisily to the glass, he finally said, "I'll bet you that next drink it's a woman."
    Puzzled, Donovan glanced up at the man. "A woman?"
    "You, sitting there laughing one minute, scowling at your own reflection on the bar the next. Got to be a woman, right?"
    With a lusty chuckle, Donovan nodded. "Probably not the way you're thinking, but yes, it's a woman, all right. Isn't it always?" He tossed two coins onto the glass, paying for his drink and the barkeep's. "You an expert on the subject are you, or just a lucky guesser?"
    "An expert, friend." He poured two tall shots and shoved one Donovan's way. "I've known and loved them all, the short, the fat, and the tall. There isn't a thing that surprises me about women