Into the Whirlwind by Elizabeth Camden Page B

from hers. “And I am dying here because a woman I have hankered after for years just kicked me in the teeth. Again .”
    Mollie blanched. “Why do you keep talking like that? We barely know each other!”

    He was mad enough to spit fire. “I couldn’t court a woman who did business with Hartman’s,” he ground out. “That was the quickest route for me to get canned, but after the fire, I don’t care anymore about rules. You are a woman I want in my life, but my hand to God, if you keep accusing me of trying to swindle you, I am liable to combust.”
    Her eyes narrowed in distrust, and he was smart enough to know that blasted scrap of paper was going to be a wedge between them forever unless he could figure a way to dispose of it.
    He settled his hands on her shoulders. “Mollie, you have a piece of paper. In the coming years, the court system in this city is going to be swamped with a legal quagmire the likes of which this country has never seen before. With the archives of the courthouse in ashes, there is no way to prove the legitimacy of that deed.”
    “No way to disprove it either.”
    “Exactly.” He turned her around and cupped the side of her face. He tried using a gentle pressure to nudge her face up to look at him, but she resisted. “Mollie, I have cared about you for years. I have made a great study of Mollie Knox and the way she runs her business, but you know nothing about me. I suppose it is not fair for me to expect you to trust me when I’ve never been more than the man signing off on your quarterly revenue statements. Come live at my house. Bring Frank. Heaven help me, you can even bring Sophie, but come. I can’t stand the thought of you shivering in that church. No matter what it takes, I intend to earn your trust, and after that, you’d better put an armed guard around your heart, because I plan on winning you and folding you into my life. Fair warning, woman.”
    Mollie squinted at something over his shoulder, and Zackrealized she had not been paying attention to a single word he’d said. “I wonder what that boy is doing,” she said.
    A block away, a boy with a stack of papers was walking down the street, handing out a piece of paper to the few people who were picking through the rubble. A newsboy? Mollie was already heading toward him, and Zack had no choice but to follow.
    The newsboy saw Mollie and met her halfway. “Fresh news, no charge,” he said, as he pressed a single sheet of paper into Mollie’s hands. The Chicago Tribune banner graced the top of the single sheet of paper.
    Mollie looked at the boy in amazement. “I saw your building go up in flames with my own eyes,” she said. “How can you be back in business so quickly?”
    The boy grinned. “We found a building on Canal Street with a printing press ready for use. It will be a while before we can get a full issue out, but our equipment can produce newssheets. If you have anything that needs reporting, we are at Number 15 Canal Street.”
    “Do you know if the fire jumped to the west of the river?” Zack asked, holding his breath.
    “It did not,” he said. “We’ve got people out mapping the damage and will make a better report in tomorrow’s paper.” Then the boy’s good humor sank. “The fire got the Union Baseball Grounds. No more White Stockings for a while.”
    Zack winced. Somehow losing the baseball stadium added insult to profound injury. The White Stockings meant a lot to this city. Last night as he was trying to sleep, he had toyed with the idea of sponsoring free baseball games to bring a tiny glimmer of enjoyment to the people. It couldn’t happen without a stadium.
    The newsboy strode on, and Mollie scrutinized the paper. “Look here,” she said excitedly. “They have a column announcingthe names of people who have been reported lost. I wonder if Sophie’s name is here.”
    Zack scanned the page. Sure enough, two columns of names had been printed: one of people who were missing, and the