Fool's Gold

by Cassandra Dean

  The letterhead proclaimed the writer to be Margaret Cunningham Garrett, and her residence to be within the wealthier districts of Chicago. She mentioned places and folk Pearl had never heard of, but from the tone of the words and the style in which she wrote them, Garrett surely had. A whole history were there, hidden behind sentences on expensive paper, and what’s more it were a shared one.

  …Ethan, the Christmas season is upon us once more. Delight me, and say you will visit this year. Your father could be persuaded to send you funds, should you require them, and there is always a place for you at our table when we hold our Christmas gathering. Please come home. Your silly rebellion has gone on long enough.

  From there, it went into a description of relatives’ comings and doings, as well as a line or two about how fire had destroyed one of the family’s concerns, a warehouse and attached office.

  It was signed, quite simply, Love, Mother.

  She read it again, turned it over. Still the words made the same sense as the first reading. “What’s wrong with this?”

  Tapping his fingers against the table, he nodded at the letter. “It’s obvious. It’s right there, in black and white.”

  “There is nothing obvious about your letter, apart from a momma’s love for her son.”

  The drumming ceased. “They want me to forget my foolish dreams and return home. They want me to take up the mantle of the Garrett legacy and forget my petty rebellion. They think my whole life is lived to spite them. That’s what’s wrong with it.”

  “Legacy? What—” Oh. Oh, Christ. “You’re one of those Garretts?”

  A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Mother writes as if she doesn’t know why I left. She knows. She was the one who lamented my lack of social graces. She was the one I told of how I loved learning of coal and mining. She knows better than to call it a ‘petty rebellion.’” Belatedly, he seemed to realize her question. “You know my family?”

  “How could I not? Christ Jesus, Garrett, I’m from Chicago.” A kind of panic filled her, so much she’d no room for anything else. He was a Garrett. A Garrett. One of the richest families in Chicago, the Garretts owed their wealth to warehousing and shipping. And now, she had one seated before her.

  Alice was from Chicago, too. Had she known about him? If she had, it would have been a kindness to mention such to her. Alice knew how she felt about rich men.

  She swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. “Did you—Who else have you told? Alice?”

  “No one, not Mrs. Reyno—I mean, Mrs. Llewellyn. No one.” He shoved a hand through his hair, the strands sticking up like spikes in its wake. “Damn it, this is what I never wanted. People treating me different because of my last name. It hasn’t—ain’t—got nothing to do with me.”

  It couldn’t get any worse, and yet it did. “You talk proper.”

  He scowled. “No, I don’t. Not anymore.”

  She hugged herself. It felt colder in the cavernous saloon of a sudden. How could she not have known? How could none of them? Four years it had been since he had first come to Freewill, and she’d mostly thought him an annoyance and nothing more. She’d never given thought to where he’d made his home before.

  Garrett had money. Moreover, he was rich.

  She didn’t hold with rich men.

  Launching to her feet, she paid no mind to how her action bumped the table, to how his still-full glass spilled its whiskey across the surface. Surprise lit his face at her sudden action, but she had no mind for his thoughts right that moment. It took her all to deal with the panic seeking to leap right through her skin. “Perhaps it is you should be seeking solace elsewhere. That blizzard ain’t gonna wait for you, and I have better things to do than listen to your troubles that ain’t troubles at all.”

  “You’ve got no call to say whether they’re troubles or not. Maybe they seem petty to you, but you don’t know my family.”

  She laughed, and it were a bitter sound. Oh, she knew his family. Probably better than he realized. Rich men always sought a pretty face, and thought the girls of a dancing hall fair game. A kind of crawling started on her skin, and her chest felt too tight. She’d left Chicago and her life there upon Alice’s invitation to star in her then-new Spectacular, and she had no desire to ever live it again.

  She shook off such memories, and tried to shake the anxiety fixing to consume her. Logically, she knew her behavior made no sense, but she weren’t operating from logic just at the moment. “It ain’t neither here nor there, and the fact remains I don’t want you in my saloon. You’ll leave, or I’ll scream blue murder to all who care to listen.”

  Exhaling, he rubbed his jaw. “Damn it, this is why I haven’t told no one. My family stopped being my concern more than a dozen years ago, and I don’t see why they should be the concern of anyone else.”

  Ignoring his words, she stalked over to the Diamond’s doors and threw them wide. An icy blast greeted her, almost knocking her down with its force. A sinking sense of dismay filled her as she looked out to Main Street. A blanket of white liberally covered the boardwalk afore her, and the violently falling snow obscured any view more than a foot from her.

  “Too late.” Disbelief filled her. The blizzard, the one that had been threatening all day, had arrived.

  “What?”

  She jumped. He had somehow made his way to her side without her knowledge and stood less than a breath away. Wrapping her arms about herself, she inched from him. “You’ll have to stay now.”

  He stared, a muscle twitching in his jaw. “The blizzard rolled in quick.”

  Deliberately, she shut and bolted the door. Her brain weren’t cooperating, weren’t helping her to think of the flirty barbs she usually employed to set him in his place. Instead, she made her way to the chair she’d abandoned so suddenly.

  He turned from the door, standing there tall and straight and looking too handsome to her eyes. “I guess we’re both settling in.”

  Tightening her arms, she didn’t respond. She didn’t know how. All she knew was, until the weather turned, she was trapped in the Diamond. With Garrett. Who was suddenly rich.

  And she didn’t hold with rich men.

  Chapter Two

  Turning his Stetson around in his hands, Ethan watched Pearl. For the past hour, she’d sat with her hands balled in her lap, her head up, and her gaze forward. Fiery red hair piled atop her head threatened to spill at any moment, and the bright blue eyes usually lit with a devilish gleam now looked at anything but him.

  Her dress buttoned up to her throat. He hadn’t seen her in such a dress before, with no skin but her hands and face showing. Usually, she wore what he always thought of her uniform, a gown of a stunningly bright color showing off her impressive cleavage and the curves nature had seen fit to give her. To go with such a uniform, her face was usually made up with paint, her eyes outlined with black and her lips as scarlet as her hair. The Pearl before him, in gown of a subdued color displaying no more skin than it must and with a face scrubbed clean, seemed an altogether different sort of woman.

  His hands tightened on the brim of his Stetson. He didn’t know if he was comfortable with a non-flamboyant Pearl la Monte.

  Pearl la Monte. The name had to be false. For one thing, he doubted she was of French extraction. If anything, the red hair would signify Irish blood—provided such a fiery red was natural, which again he doubted—and her being originally from his own hometown of Chicago seemed to support such a notion.

  Goddamn, why was he wondering such when it wasn’t his business? Pearl la Monte and where she came from had no bearing on his daily life, but sometimes, he found himself wondering about her. Too often for comfort. Alone in his cabin, surrounded by the papers of his trade, his mind would turn to Pearl la Monte and her devilish grin. Was she flirting with the men of the Diamond? Was she practicing her singing, her voice soaring to the heavens? Was she—

  Goddamn. He was doing it again.

  Shaking himself, he turned his thoughts instead to the pages
burning a hole in his pocket. He’d received the letter almost a month ago, and he’d spent the time between that moment and this stewing upon its contents. His mother sent him missives infrequently, though she knew he’d settled in Freewill nigh on four years ago. He’d written to her himself, a short telegram advising his address and wishing her and his father well. She hadn’t responded, but she saw fit to contact him at Christmastime every year, as if the season heralded a remembrance of her absent son.

  And just like last year and the year before, his mother’s words had stirred all manner of trouble within him, troubles he thought laid to rest years ago, and yet with a letter less than four pages long had come out to plague him again. For all the days of the month past, he’d managed to pretend he’d forgotten such. But then he’d woken this morning—the morning of Christmas Eve—and been unable to pretend any longer. Grabbing his Stetson and shrugging into his duster, he’d started walking and before he realized which direction he was headed, he’d stood in front of the Diamond, staring at the sign telling him it was closed.

  And all he could think was how badly he’d wanted to see Pearl.

  Damn it, why his obsession with her? She thought him a fool, and a joke, besides. She made fun of him every chance she got, had even done it as soon as he’d arrived at the Diamond’s door. He didn’t know why he’d wanted to see her, why he wanted to pour his troubles to her. She’d been a thorn in his side these four years gone, and yet now he wanted her to tell him everything would be all right, that his worries would ease with the passing of the wind.

  Exhaling, he turned his Stetson again in his hands. Christ, was there ever a man more fool than him?

  He turned his contemplation to her. Still she sat there all stern, determinedly not looking at him, like there was a point to such when, in truth, they were stuck in the saloon together until the blizzard saw fit to break. Might as well make such moments pleasant. “Miz Pearl, it seems to me we’ll be spending a good while together as the wind out there howls. Perhaps we could pass the time with kind words and conversation.”

  The grip she had on her hands tightened, though her face lit with a flirty smile. “What could we talk of, Mr. Garrett? Would you like to know the best way to kick your petticoats so as to display your limbs all the way to the thigh?”

  The image of her baring her legs in such a manner flashed though his mind. Heat rushed through him, tightening his skin. “Maybe we could start with something less titillating.”

  “Less titillating? My, I don’t know if my mind is wired in such a way. Hell, what is a less titillating subject?”

  Images of her naked legs still dancing about, he cleared his throat. “Perhaps the weather?”

  The flirty smile died abruptly. “It’s snowing. But maybe there is something we could talk of.” Unclasping her hands, she leaned forward in her seat. “How about how you are of those Garretts, them that have all the money in Chicago? How about we discuss how you kept such to yourself all these years, though you’re accounted by some to be a member of Freewill’s community?” She smiled sweetly. “Shall we discuss the virtues of lying by omission?”

  He frowned. It made no sense she was so riled by the knowledge of who his people were. “I ain’t never lied.”

  The sweet smile took on a vicious edge. “And there, you do it again, with your false way of speaking. Surely they made you undertake book-learnin’ when you were a kid? With tutors and such? Rich folk always foist their kids onto hired help.”

  The beginnings of anger took him. “What about you? You’re more learned than you appear. Foist? Who says such but someone well educated?”

  She raised a brow. “But, Mr. Garrett, I haven’t ever lied about who I am.”

  “Really? So your people were named la Monte, were they?”

  A sneer screwed her features. “It’s a stage name. Wanna know my real one? Ask.”

  All of a sudden, he was curious to know the name her parents had given her—but that wouldn’t win him the argument. “In any event, I haven’t lied about my people. I just haven’t advertised it.”

  “Yeah. You lied by omission.”

  He grit his teeth. “I ain’t never hidden who I was.”

  “You ain’t never announced it neither. Every word out of your mouth is a lie, Mr. Garrett. You don’t rightly speak the way you pretend you do.”

  “I’ll speak any damn way I please. Who are you to say any different?”

  Crossing her arms, she gave him again that sweet smile. “If you ain’t never lied, why did you say nothing of your beginnings?”

  “Because it’s no one’s business but my own.” Goddamn, but she was making such a fuss of who he happened to be related to. It wasn’t his fault his family was who they were. “Why are you riled?”

  She blanched. “I ain’t riled.”

  Placing his Stetson on the table, he crossed his own arms and raised a brow. “Then why is your voice rising?”

  “It ain’t rising. And you’re right, what you do ain’t no concern of mine.” She got to her feet. “Nothing says we have to spend this blizzard together. Good day.” And, turning on her heel, she marched off toward the stairs.

  A weird kind of panic jolted through him, one he’d never felt before in all his days. It was…he didn’t…. She couldn’t leave him. “Where are you going?”

  She whirled to face him, her irritation plain. “I was seeking my bed before your arrival, and now I’m seeking it again. Help yourself to whiskey this one time. I got better things to do.”

  Shoving to his feet, he strode to her. “Don’t just walk away when we’re discussing things.”

  “We ain’t discussing nothing. You’ll be down here, waiting out the blizzard. I’ll be in my bed, doing what I was gonna before you arrived. That’s the end of it.” Taking a step, she made to leave him. Again.

  He grabbed her arm. “Don’t leave me.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do.” Glaring at him, she stood before the bar, her magnificent hair slipping from its pins, her breasts rising and falling.

  Abruptly, his mouth went dry. Clearing his throat some, he said, “You’re supposed to offer succor to those in need.”

  “We’re closed, remember?” Paint-less lips pressed tight together, she glared up at him, and they were so close he could see the faint marks of freckles on her skin.

  Pearl La Monte had freckles.

  A kind of haze came over him, tightening his skin and bringing with it something powerful and completely unstoppable. All the years he’d known her crashed through him, all the times she’d flirted with him and meant something else, all the times he’d seen her perform on stage and wished he could have held such fire.

  Grabbing her upper arms, he hauled her against him, and ignoring her shocked gasp, he covered her mouth with his.

  She stood stock still under his hands, her lips parted with her surprise. Pressing his advantage, he traced his tongue over the slight opening, and with a sigh, she allowed him entry. She tasted of whiskey and coffee and a flavor all her own, a flavor that signified Pearl and wickedness and a teasing smile she never meant. Sliding his hand up her arm, he cupped the back of her head and finally touched the glory of her hair. The strands were cool and silky, and he reveled as they threaded through his fingers, at the feel of her mouth under his, in the way she finally kissed him back. Her tongue flicked at his, and she tempted him with her taste, with a nip at his lip, with a retreat and a bold storming forward, with the way her arms snaked about his waist to hold him tight. God, he’d wanted to do this forever, had wanted it even though he told himself he didn’t, and forced her from his thoughts over and again.

  Breaking the kiss, he stared down at her. Great black lashes swept over eyes dazed with passion, lips reddened now by his own. His heart beat madly, his blood a thrum against his ears. Gently, he combed his fingers through her hair, her glorious, fiery hair he’d wanted to touch forever. “I’m in need, Miz Pearl.”

  His husky words hung between them. Her sk
in soft under his thumb, he waited while her uncertain gaze searched him, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. He wanted to replace her teeth with his own, to take the reddened flesh and soothe it with his tongue. Instead, he waited as she searched and searched.

  Rising to her toes, she cupped his jaw and pulled his head to hers.

  A mingle of relief and lust rushing through him, he covered her mouth once more. She tasted even better than the first, that mix of coffee and whiskey and Pearl intoxicating. Walking her backward, he found the edge of the bar and braced his arms against it, trapping her with his body. She smiled against his mouth, her fingers spearing through his hair as she kissed and kissed him. Bowed over her, he followed the line of her jaw with his lips, buried himself in her neck. Her hands drifted down his back, and she cupped his buttocks.

  Shocked, he pulled back. A grin tugging at her delectable mouth, she merely raised an eyebrow.

  An answering smile tugged at his own lips. Saucy, wicked Pearl. If she wanted to play dirty, so could he.

  Grabbing her waist, he lifted her onto the counter, bunching her skirts up around her thighs. Laughing in delight, she wrapped her legs about him to bring him into her. All those buttons marching up to her throat drew him and, with fingers that shook, he attempted to undo them. Damn things were too small, though, and his fingers slipped and slid right over them. Gentle hands brushed against his, and she nimbly undid her bodice, all the way to her waist.

  Breath strangled in his chest. Pale skin peeked at him from the vee of her gown, the corset and chemise she wore barely containing her. On stage, she made use of the figure God had given her, the luscious curves and abundant flesh poured into gowns designed to titillate and tease, but with her plain white corset and cotton chemise, he found her almost unbearably desirable.

  Leaning forward, he kissed her jaw and followed the cord of her neck down to the hollow of her throat. Her chest rose and fell beneath him, her breath ragged as her hands skimmed over his shoulders and back. A sharp pull, another, and she’d forced the duster from him, her fingers curling under his suspenders to push them from him as well.