by Pam Crooks
He reached out a hand, as if he intended to touch her, as if convincing her was imperative, but he drew back and cleared his throat instead. “I’m going out to explore the town. Not sure when I’ll be back.”
“Fine. I’ll leave the front door unlocked for you,” she said, her tone cool.
He pivoted on his heel and strode out. As much as she should, she couldn’t peel her stare off his broad back or stop herself from liking the way his tall, muscular body fit into his expensive suit. Or the way he walked, graceful and confident and... masculine.
Thoughts about a man whom she had no business thinking about at all... or appreciating in the least.
But she did.
What did it matter anyway if she called him Reed? In a few days’ time, he’d leave Wildcat Ridge, and she’d never see him again.
Chapter 7
Darkness had fallen by the time Reed returned to the Crane Hotel, but the hours away had been well spent. He now knew each business in Wildcat Ridge, what street it was on, and which one was still open. While strolling up and down the boardwalks, he met some of the residents and businessowners, mostly women, but a few men, as well. He took the time to converse with them, steering his inquiries toward Mortimer Crane, and to say they had an opinion about the man was an understatement.
Unfavorable. Every one.
Damned shame folks had to abide in a town virtually owned by a tyrant like Crane. He was plain wrong and completely heartless to want to drive them out so soon after they’d suffered the loss of their husbands and friends from the Gold King Mine explosions. Where was his sense of duty to the widows? His compassion?
It was a wonder the folks’ loyalty to Wildcat Ridge remained strong. They wanted to stay and rebuild their town and their lives. More than anything, though, they wanted to defeat Mortimer Crane.
Took a lot of spunk and spine to want to do those things, and Reed admired them. He’d lived most of his life in Denver and never known a fervor for the city like the one folks had for this struggling little town.
Gave him plenty to think about, for sure. Like what it was about that fervor to make him realize he didn’t have it in his own life? In his own city? And the prospect of moving to Washington, D.C., where he’d be a stranger with no sense of belonging or loyalty?
Left him with a strange feeling in his stomach.
A single lamp glowed in the lobby, but it was the light in the kitchen that drew him, and after hearing a slight noise, whoever was in there drew him, too.
He hoped it was Eleanora. She’d been on his mind all afternoon and evening. Each conversation with the townspeople thrust him into her place and existence as a widow and as a mother. Her fight against Mortimer Crane, most of all.
He strode toward the kitchen, and seeing her in a cotton robe, her blond hair spilling over her shoulders, his pulse leapt. She reached up on bare tiptoes to pull a jar off a shelf and close the cabinet door with a muted echo. She moved to a wooden table with silent footsteps and pulled out a chair.
It was then she saw him, standing there, watching her, and she yelped in surprise. The jar dropped from her right hand, the one he now knew was her injured one; the thing clattered to the floor and rolled right toward him.
“Oh!” She pressed her hand to her chest. “I didn’t see you standing there.”
He picked up the jar and held it toward her. A corner of his mouth lifted in amusement. “Obviously.”
She made no move to take it. Her scarred hand clenched, and she hid her fist behind her back. She stood straighter, as if gathering all her dignity and wrapping herself within its folds, like a protective blanket.
“I’ve just bathed,” she said. “I’ll change clothes. Please, give me a moment.”
She swiveled and would have escaped the room if he hadn’t spoken her name first. She halted. Turned toward him, as if it was the last thing she wanted to do. As if he were some sort of firing squad.
“Eleanora,” he said again. Did she think he intended to hurt her? “You’re fully dressed and completely decent.”
“A woman doesn’t let a man she doesn’t know see her in nightclothes.”
“But you do know me. I’m your guest in this hotel.” He set the jar on the table.
“All the more reason.”
“I’ve seen a woman in her nightclothes before.”
The slightest tightening of her lips suggested the comment implied more than he meant. “I’m sure you have.”
“My wife’s,” he said quietly. “God rest her soul.”
She appeared taken aback, and whatever private judgment she might’ve made about him seemed to disappear. “Of course.” Her throat moved. “Do you want anything? Coffee? A drink? I found a bottle of whiskey the other day, and you’re welcome to it.”
“Only if you’ll join me.”
“I can, yes.” Her mouth softened. “Not for whiskey, but for water. I’ve never acquired a taste for strong spirits.”
“Water it is.” He tossed his bowler onto the tabletop and ran his fingers through his hair. “Where’s Tessa?”
“In bed. Sleeping. Because it’s late, you know.”
“I lost track of time.”
She took a glass tumbler and a brown bottle from another cupboard, this one easier to reach, and set both on the table. “I thought you’d retired to your room already. You’re lucky I hadn’t locked the front door yet.”
“Wouldn’t have mattered. I can pick a lock.” He poured himself a small amount of whiskey.
Her eyes widened. “You can?”
“Got pretty good at it while I was in law school. Had to learn if I didn’t want to get kicked out. I was notorious for missing curfews.”
“I see.” She cocked her head in clear consideration of his confession. Until a glint of humor danced in those peacock-blue eyes. “Should I be worried you’ll steal me blind?”
He rather liked this playful mood of hers. “I have no intention of doing anything criminal with my talents.”
She waggled a finger, furrowing her brows in stern warning. “It’s good that you don’t, because one word to Mr. Crane, and he’ll make you pay him back tenfold.”
“Ah. Mortimer Crane. Heard a lot about him tonight.” Reed took a sip of the amber liquid. Cheap, but palatable.
She filled another glass with water from a metal pitcher taken from the icebox. “You’ve been talking to the widows?”
“And anyone else I met.”
“So, you know he’s heartless.” She pulled out the chair next to his and sat.
“I do.”
“And selfish and cruel and egotistical.”
“That, too.”
“Should I go on?”
“No need, my dear Eleanora. I’ve gotten an earful about the man already.”
To say Reed had a better understanding of her purpose in writing so many letters was an understatement. It’d be easy to despise Crane without even meeting him, but in fairness to the case Eleanora wanted the Miners Association to file against him, Reed needed to gather facts and form an opinion for himself.
Eleanora took the jar of petroleum jelly and set it in her lap, as if she didn’t want him to know what it was. Or its purpose, either, though by now, Reed had pretty well figured it out.
“Sounds like you made your way around Wildcat Ridge quite thoroughly,” she said.
“I did.”
“And now everyone knows we have a visitor from Denver. A union attorney, no less.”
“If they didn’t before, they will now. Gossip, I would guess, travels quickly around here.”
She glanced at him from beneath her long, perfectly-curved lashes. “You have no idea.”
“That could be a good thing.”
Her expression shadowed. “Or not. Depends on one’s point of view.”
“Meaning?’
“If one stands to suffer under said gossip.”
“I see.” Except he really didn’t, but there came that feeling again, that she wasn’t being entirely honest with hi
m. He’d find out what she was hiding before he left for Washington, D.C. But for now, he’d change the subject. “Folks are talking about your scavenger hunt, too. Posters are everywhere.”
She stilled. “It’s not my scavenger hunt, Reed.”
“Mayor Hester gave it to you.”
“I haven’t the foggiest what to do.”
“I’ll think on it.”
“Why should you?” Curious, or maybe skeptical, her blue gaze fastened onto him.
“I happen to like games,” he said. “Strategy is part of the fun.”
“Hmm. Strategy.”
“And you need a helper.”
Her brow arched. “From Washington, D.C.?”
A sharp reminder of his limited time in Wildcat Ridge, for sure. Since she wasn’t buying into his poor attempt to soothe her worries, and since she was right that any help he could offer would be inconvenient at best, he took another sip of whiskey, buying himself some time to change the subject. Again. Because he wanted to keep talking to her, just the two of them, in the quiet of the kitchen.
He set the glass down. “You have a jar in your lap. Am I keeping you from using it?”
Her glance dropped. A faint pink bloomed in her cheeks. “Just some petroleum jelly. It is, um, therapy the doctor has ordered for my hand.”
“Good for your skin.”
“Yes.” She fiddled with the jar, not looking at him.
Her reluctance to show her hand moved him. There was a part of him, growing stronger by the moment, that wanted her to be completely comfortable with him. No holding back. No shame.
As if he had the right to know and see everything about her.
“Don’t be embarrassed, Eleanora,” he said quietly. “You incurred an injury. Happens to folks now and again.”
“I hate how it looks.”
“No doubt.” He nudged the whiskey tumbler aside and reached for the jar, setting it in front of him. Knowing she likely wouldn’t want him to, he opened it, then he reached for her hand, too. “May I?”
“May you what? See my hand?” Her fist curled deeper into the folds of her cotton robe.
“I think you should show it to me, yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it’ll get easier the more you do.” He leaned forward. “You think you’re going to shock me? That I’ll be repulsed?”
Her chin lifted. “Yes. That’s exactly what I think. Why wouldn’t you be?”
He took her hand, anyway. He wouldn’t blame her if she slapped him away, but amazingly, she didn’t. He cradled her hand in his palm.
“Ouch,” he murmured, drawing a finger along the largest scar. “Bet it hurt.”
“Quite a lot.”
He dipped into the jar and scooped out a generous mound of the salve. “Mr. Kitty didn’t make it, eh?”
“Unfortunately not.”
“Tessa take it hard?”
“At first, yes. Until Mrs. Cat came along.”
He smoothed the jelly over her knuckles, between each slender finger, and smiled. “And how do we know Mrs. Cat is a missus?”
“Because we found her with four kittens living behind a water barrel. Since she was a mother with babies, Tessa believed she was married, although she never questioned the absence of a papa cat.”
He chuckled. “A proper cat with the proper reputation, then.”
Eleanora smiled, too. “At least, Tessa thought so.”
“We won’t tell her any differently, will we?”
“No.” Her smile faded. “The innocence of a child. I wish she’d stay that way forever.”
“No doubt you do.” Reed recapped the jar. With his own fingers slick with the salve, he stroked and straightened each of hers gently. “I’m not a doctor, Eleanora, but my guess is your hand will heal nicely. You’ve got a good start.”
“It will always be ugly to me.”
He nodded. “I suspect so. I’ve met miners who have had their entire hand and even their arm blown off from explosives that went off prematurely, though.”
Her full lips formed a pout. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“They went on with their lives one-handed.”
“And I have two, you’re saying.”
He drew back. “I’m saying give yourself time to accept what happened, then go about each day as if it hadn’t.”
She cocked her head. “Are you always so philosophical?”
“Just opinionated, my sweet.” He chucked her under the chin.
Her lashes lowered, and once again, her cheeks pinkened. Maybe he’d been too bold with her, but had her husband never been playful with her? Used an endearment with her?
Clearly, Reed had flustered her. It hadn’t been his intention, but he liked that she was sweet and pure and just enough innocent to blush from a fluster after a simple chuck under the chin.
He was liking her, all right. Too much, too soon. If only he could touch her hair and slide his fingers through its silkiness. It’d been so long since he’d done that to a woman. Realizing he wanted to do so with Eleanora now, more with every minute he spent with her, left him a little flustered himself.
Suddenly, she tilted her head, listening, and then Reed heard it, too. Voices, muted outside, but coming closer.
Quickly, she stood, taking her water glass and jar of salve with her. She held a finger to her lips. Reed stood, too, scooping up his whiskey. He knew not to say anything, that silence was imperative. She pushed both chairs quietly against the table, making it look as if the two of them hadn’t just been sitting there, and gestured for him to follow. In a few steps, she slipped into a dark alcove. A butler’s pantry of sorts, within reach of the stove and hardly big enough for one person, let alone two.
Grasping his wrist, she pulled him in with her, lifted a finger to her lips again, and in the next moment, the back door opened. Voices drew closer, sounded clearer, and a man and woman walked in.
Chapter 8
Even without seeing them, Eleanora knew who they were.
About this time, Mortimer Crane often brought in one of his floozies from the Gentlemen Only Salon for a romp upstairs. He’d had a secret stairwell built just for that purpose, with his very own suite of rooms, and did he think she was stupid, not knowing what he was up to late at night?
Thank goodness, Tessa had never been awake to question the tipsy laughter and stumbles up the steps. Since her room was located off the kitchen, close to the stairwell, Eleanora always kept the door securely locked; by the time she rose in the morning, the pair was gone. On the occasions Mortimer Crane came to the hotel to check on his business, he never spoke of his trysts, nor did Eleanora.
Certainly not.
Now that she knew what was happening and what to expect, she had little choice but to stay hidden in the alcove with Reed Shannon, in her nightclothes, neither moving, both listening for the footsteps to fade and a door to close. And when both happened, when silence fell upon the kitchen once again, they still didn’t move.
Not that Eleanora wanted to, and did that make her shameless? Wanton? Was she betraying her dead husband?
She didn’t know, and for the moment, she didn’t care. She closed her eyes and absorbed Reed’s nearness, his warmth, the feel of the fabric of his wool suit so different than the well-worn cotton of her robe.
He was taller than Darvin, broader in the shoulders, but lean, too. Here in this tiny space, his scent surrounded her, and she breathed in ever so slightly, savoring it. Again, different than Darvin’s. Nothing like a gold mine, but... masculine, with a hint of tobacco and whiskey.
Big city sophistication.
Goodness, the effect he had on her. Disturbing, but a little delicious, too. Had she ever felt it with Darvin before? This trill of attraction skidding through her blood?
“Sounds like they’re gone,” Reed said, his voice low. Intimate in the small space.
Eleanora didn’t want to open her eyes, but she had to. She couldn’t linger, but she wanted to, and
her mind spun from the conflicting wants...
She tilted her head back. Shadows darkened the planes of his face, giving him the look of both refinement and outlaw, and oh, the thought stirred up a whole new round of forbidden wants.
“Yes. They won’t come down again for hours,” she said, her voice hushed.
“Why are we hiding?”
The time had come to end the closeness. She drew upon sheer force of will and stepped out of the alcove.
She faced him. “Mr. Crane wouldn’t approve of me entertaining a hotel guest this late in my nightclothes, and he’d be only too happy for another opportunity to sully my reputation.”
With a lazy grace, Reed moved into the kitchen light, too. “You’re hardly entertaining me, Eleanora, and what opportunity has he been given to ruin you?”
Her mouth opened to tell him everything. The blackmail, the stolen gold, her dismay at being forced to live in a hotel when she longed to return home to her cabin in the country. Her need for Tessa to live an ordinary life like any other child, too, and how she wished for happiness for herself.
But what good would telling him do? He’d only think she was complaining. He hadn’t traveled to Wildcat Ridge just for her, anyway. He’d come to help all the widows, and even then, she had no assurances he’d succeed.
“It’s late, Reed,” she said instead, hedging. “It’s a long story for another time.”
“Will you tell me?” he asked quietly. “Another time?”
“Maybe.”
Or maybe not.
She moved to the cupboard to return the jar of petroleum jelly to its place, but he stayed right where he was, watching her.
“I’ll hold you to that, then.” His dark head cocked. “Is he married?”
“Yes.” She closed the cupboard door quietly. “His wife lives in Salt Lake City with their two children.”
His mouth tightened. “Does she know of his philandering?”
Eleanora crossed her arms over her bosom and shrugged. “Wives know their husbands. I’m sure she suspects.” But then, Eleanora thought suddenly, how well had she known her own husband? Never once had she guessed him capable of stealing gold from Mortimer Crane. Even now, she didn’t know for sure he hadn’t. “Ophelia Crane has never been to Wildcat Ridge. Perhaps that’s a sign of the state of their marriage right there.”