by Sarah Hegger
“Nor I.” Mother tucked her hand through his arm and led him closer to Ellie and her new friend. “But I was a bit alarmist to send the message.”
Ellie turned her bottomless chocolate eyes his way and gave him a sweet, tentative smile. “Cole.”
“Ellie.” It had been forever since she’d caressed his name as she spoke it. “The store looks good.”
She flushed and put her sandwich on the plate. “Would you like me to show you around? You do own half of it.”
“Later.” He nudged her sandwich closer to her. “You look like you need to eat.”
The man, his mother, the store all receded as she met his gaze and held it. “It’s good to see you.”
“And you.” So good that his answering smile came from his core. “Mother keeps me informed on what you’re getting up to.”
“She’s a terrible spy.” Ellie threw his mother a fond glance. “But she makes a good sandwich and an even better cup of tea.”
“Best I’ve had all week.” The man sipped his tea and smacked his lips.
Ellie kept her gaze on him.
Maybe it was his conceit, but he thought she was looking at him like she’d missed the very sight of him.
“Are you hungry?”
He was about to deny it, but those thick wedges of fresh bread looked delicious. “What’s on offer?”
“Ham, cheese, fresh tomatoes and bread Molly baked this morning,” Mother answered.
Cole took a seat beside the man. “Sounds perfect.” He motioned the teapot. “Any more in there?”
“I’ll get you a cup.” Ellie stood.
“No, you won’t.” The man pressed her back into her seat and stared at her sandwich. “Cole is right, you should eat. You work harder than any man I know, and you’re only a tiny bit of a thing.”
“Don’t make me get the gun, Sal.”
Sal threw back his head and guffawed. He winked at Cole. “Don’t she beat all?”
Yeah, she did. Sugar had this way of lighting the world around her. “And she’s a crack shot.” Cole winked at Ellie.
She laughed.
And Cole couldn’t drag his gaze away. Ellie laughed like she would never get the chance to do it again. Her eyes crinkled into half-moons over her flushed cheeks, and the sound boomed from her, all the more surprising for her size.
God, he’d missed her.
She bit into her sandwich.
Mother brought him a sandwich and took a seat beside him. “Sal and Ellie had a dispute over cotton,” she said.
“Who won?” Cole was hungrier than he’d thought, and he took most of the sandwich in one huge bite.
Mother raised her brow at him. “Who do you think won?”
“Sorry, Sal, but the smart money is on the lady.” That was a good sandwich. The bread was so fresh it almost fell apart, the cheese was sharp, the ham succulent and the tart bite of fresh tomatoes finished it off. In the months he’d been in New York, Cole had eaten all kinds of fancy meals, but not one compared to that sandwich and cup of tea.
Sal waved his teacup around. “Of course, she did. My oldest boy could do with a smart, strong woman like this one.”
“I’m not getting married, Sal.” Ellie shook her head at Sal.
Jealousy, cold and hard, twisted through Cole, and he bit into his sandwich before he stood and bellowed that Ellie would never marry Sal’s son. Not a fucking chance.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Ellie was running out of lies to tell herself as she dragged herself out of bed and opened the store a couple of mornings after Cole’s visit. Part of her wished he’d never come, and an even bigger part of her had hoarded each precious moment and pressed it between the pages of her memory.
Molly had gotten an early start running errands. She already suspected what Ellie was being forced to accept. It had been three months since her last monthlies. That alone, she could put down to opening the store, the hard work and the determination to make her store a success. The sensitive, swollen breasts and the tiredness, however, could not be so easily explained away. At the Four Kings, she’d had this conversation with more than one girl.
Outside the store, a gloomy day greeted her. The folk of this big, exhausting city were up and about, paying no attention to the threatening gray clouds. Already, the weather had begun to cool in the late evenings and early mornings. Fall was on its way. Back home, they would be taking a break from the crushing, dry heat of summer and praying fire didn’t break out in the parched brush.
Cole’s man came by every few weeks and let her know how the search for Theo was going. They’d traced him to San Francisco, from where he’d taken a mule train to the gold fields, and they’d lost track of him, but Cole’s man remained hopeful.
Sputtering raindrops hit the sidewalk outside the store. People moved faster to get out of the damp.
She was pregnant. Knocked up, in the family way, expecting, with child, a bun in the oven, gravid.
And with not a damn clue what to do about being that way. Her conscience whispered that Cole needed to know, had the right to know, but she hesitated to tell him. Twelve years Cole had waited to have his dream, and now that it hovered within his grasp, she couldn’t be the one to take it away from him.
As much as Cole had played the high roller and done it well, his heart had never been in it. Maybe that’s what she’d recognized in him when they’d first met. Despite the slick duds and the smooth talking, gun toting charmer he appeared to be, perhaps she had always known there was a lot more to him than that. Who could tell? It was all water under the bridge now, and she was going to have his child.
Unmarried and pregnant had all the makings of disaster, but she didn’t regret it was Cole’s baby she carried. She had no idea how she was going to make the store, the baby, her life work. It was really difficult to attribute her baby to her dead, and nonexistent, husband.
A woman opened the door and stepped out of the drizzle. “Good morning.”
“Can I help you?” Ellie recognized Victoria the moment she looked up.
Victoria strolled into the shop taking everything in. “I feel sure you can.”
Ellie waited, refusing to give in to the desire to explain her store, to excuse it for not meeting Victoria’s standards. Instead she watched Victoria fiddle with a heavy claret velvet ribbon they used for trim, pick up and replace a lace collar.
As a woman who had run more than fifteen whores, Ellie recognized the signs of a woman bent on trouble. If she waited, Victoria would spit it out.
It took less than five minutes for Victoria to get to her reason for being there. “You’re Ellie Pierce, and you came from Colorado with Cole.”
“I did.”
The glitter in Victoria’s eyes spoke of a woman determined to draw blood.
Ellie braced for it. “And you know this because we’ve met before.”
“Right.” Victoria fingered a raw silk and dropped it with a curl of her lips. “I never heard the story of how you met.”
For a glorious second, Ellie toyed with the idea of telling Victoria the truth. Cole had offered five hundred dollars to fuck her. Instead she said, “Then you should ask Cole to tell you.”
“We both know he won’t do that.” Victoria gave her a tight smile. “So, I’m asking you, woman to woman. I’m assuming you know something of my past with Cole?”
“I know he never forgot you in all the years he lived in Colorado. I also know he came back to New York for you.” It cost her a chunk of her heart to say as much, but she didn’t have the energy to get into a territorial war with Victoria. Victoria had already won, and the only person who didn’t know that was Victoria.
“Oh?” Victoria blinked at her.
Ellie almost laughed. Victoria had come here for a catfight. She’d probably spent the carriage ride getting her ammunition all lined up, and now Ellie had frustrated all of that by refusing to play. “Did you think I didn’t know that?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
Victoria tittered and wound her reticule straps around her fingers. “I’m sure I had no thought to what you did and did not know.”
“Really?” God, this woman would need to grow a tougher hide. “So, you didn’t come here to make sure I was no threat to you?”
Victoria gaped at her and then blushed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do.” Ellie was tired of her game already. Victoria had won, and won the greatest prize of all, and she hadn’t the strength to stand there and pretend. “You came here to look the enemy in the eye and warn them away from your man.”
Victoria struggled for words.
Ellie marched to the door and opened it. “I have good news for you. You’ve won. Cole is yours, and I’ll stay out of your way.”
To give her due, Victoria tried to come back and ended on a huffed, “Well, I never.”
Ellie opened the door. “Make him happy, Victoria. Make him happier than I ever could, and you’ll never see me again as long as you live. He deserves that and so much more, and if you can’t do that, then you need to start worrying yourself over me.”
Still opening and shutting her mouth, Victoria marched out the door. She stopped on the step into her carriage and almost marched back into the store but decided against it and let her footman hand her into the coach.
“Well done.” Molly leaned against the doorjamb from the workroom into the front of the store. “You told her all right.”
“Let’s get the store ready for the day.”
Folding her arms, Molly stared her down. “It was a wonderful speech, great, in fact, but I must have missed the part where you told her you’re having Cole’s baby.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
If Cole had been carrying his Colt Double Action, he would have shot the painted, pinned and primped opera singer screeching away like an awl to his temples.
The noise coming out of her mouth was god-awful. That much he might have been able to bear, but the way his fellow occupants in the opera box insisted they were loving every second of it had pushed him over the edge.
Someone needed shooting, and he was in the right sort of mood to do it.
“Isn’t she marvelous?” Victoria whispered to him behind her fan.
Cole huffed ostrich feathers out his mouth. Not able to manage a civilized sound, he gave a noncommittal grunt.
“She’s from Paris, you know.” Victoria made a face like that was supposed to send him into giddy swirls of delight. “They say she was all the rage in Paris.”
“We should send her back,” he said.
Victoria tittered and tapped him on the arm with her fan. “Cole!”
That was another thing. That fucking fan needed to get fed to a goat. Victoria waved it around like there was some kind of bug infestation swarming around her face.
Paris Opera Girl sucked in a breath deep enough to swallow the Hudson and let go with a shriek that almost stripped the wallpaper.
Cole shifted on his seat. “Jesus.”
“Cole?” Victoria’s smile was brittle. “Are you not enjoying Madame Eloise?”
Like a punch in the family jewels. “I’m not much for opera.”
“But, Cole.” Victoria frowned, or as near to it as she came, which was a slight flesh pinch between her eyes. “Everybody agrees she is incandescent. To hear her sing is to be transported.”
At that moment, Madame did him the favor of her life and stopped singing. She stood there, flushed, eyes sparkling and expectant, and peered down her large nose at her peons.
Relief made him applaud at least as loudly as the rest of their party.
“We are invited to join Digby and the rest of his party for a late supper.” Victoria stood and twitched her silk skirts straight.
“Fine.” It irked him the way she assumed he would fall in with whatever plans she made.
She smiled over her shoulder at him. “I am famished.”
Which meant she would nibble the corner of something and call it a meal. “Me too.”
“Oh.” Her eyes sparkled. “Mimi Rochester is here. It’s been an age since I saw her. I simply must say hello.”
Off she bustled.
“Mimi!” Victoria squeaked.
“Victoria, darling!” A robust blonde in a red dress so low her bosom was threatening to escape threw her arms open.
“Cole.” Brett sidled up beside him. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
Since Mother had locked them in together, he and Brett had established an uneasy truce. By tacit agreement, they stayed away from controversial subjects, which left the weather. “I didn’t expect to see me here either.”
Brett nearly cracked a smile. “Not a music lover?”
“Is that what we witnessed?”
This time Brett grinned. “It was a near thing,” he said, folding his arms and surveying the room. “My life passed before me.”
Cole laughed. He couldn’t help it. He’d always thought of Brett as part of Victoria’s crowd, but Brett spent more time at the office than he did socializing. It had given Cole a grudging respect for him. Brett had taken what their father had left him and quadrupled it.
“We’re going for a late supper.” Inviting his brother was a first for him. “Would you like to join us?”
“Who’s us?” Brett eyed him suspiciously.
“Digby and whatever his sister’s name is.”
“Chloe.”
“Right and the Arbuthers, and that Mimi woman in the red dress.” At least he assumed so because Victoria was tugging her his way.
“Jesus!” Brett flinched. “Not Mimi Rochester.”
Mimi caught sight of Brett and waved like she was flagging down the only stagecoach for three weeks. “Brett! Brett Mansfield.” She charged straight for Brett and latched on to his arm. “You sly thing, I swear you’ve been avoiding me.”
The look of misery Brett tried to conceal made Cole laugh even harder. His brother shot him a glare.
“Say you’ll join us, Brett?” Mimi batted her lashes at Brett. She pouted and giggled. “I refuse to take no for an answer.”
“Perfect.” Victoria clapped her hands as if she was gathering a group of children. “Our table is waiting.”
In the carriage on the way to the restaurant, Cole sat back as Victoria and Mimi chattered away. Only the knowledge that Brett was suffering the same silent misery provided comfort. Propped in the carriage corner, arms folded and his chin on his chest, Brett looked like death couldn’t come too soon for him.
They reached some restaurant that looked a lot like the one they’d been to the night before and the night before that. The same interchangeable maitre d' led them to a starched linen clothed table in the midst of a sea of beautifully dressed, jewel laden people, most of who had some urgent piece of gossip to share with Victoria.
As he took his seat, Cole had to face an uncomfortable truth. It wasn’t Mimi, Victoria or even that shrieking Parisian woman. The problem was him. He had come back to New York determined to be the man he had been before. That man, however, had died long ago in the scorching Colorado sun, and he couldn’t be resurrected. Truth be told, Cole didn’t even want him back.
The Cole who had left New York had been a spoiled child, throwing his blessings away by the handfuls. He hadn’t needed to take part in the duel that had led to his banishment. Instead of behaving like a man, his boyish conceit and arrogance had made him imagine some insult he couldn’t even remember anymore.
Mother had been heartbroken, Victoria had seen her dreams smashed, and he’d made an enemy of his only sibling. His actions that day had left ripples in other people’s lives, and he couldn’t fix those.
Of all the things he’d believed about coming back to New York, his feelings for Victoria changing hadn’t been one of them. But three months since their reunion and the words to propose to her still wouldn’t come.
Across the table, she was laughing at something Digby was saying. The jewels in her ears and at her neck caug
ht the light and sparkled. She was a beautiful woman. No doubt about it. She would be the perfect wife, but for another man, a man who appreciated what she had to offer and existed in her world.
“What?” Brett nudged him. “You have a strange look on your face.”
Cole bet he did. He didn’t love Victoria, perhaps he never really had. “Thinking.”
“About?” Brett sipped his champagne, his gaze intent on Cole.
“Change.”
Brett nodded and put his glass down. “You have changed.”
Cole didn’t think Brett would have noticed. “So have you.”
“When you left, I had to step up.” He shrugged. “And really, I should thank you for that, because I loved it. I loved having a real purpose to my day. I like being involved in business.”
“So do I.” Cole was having a night for realizations. What had started as a form of survival, building up a steady income, had become a passion. It still was, and he wasn’t ready to let it go. “I need to tell her.”
“Yeah, you do.” Brett held his hand up for the waiter. When one appeared, he said, “My brother and I will have a whisky.”
The waiter hurried off and Cole pushed his champagne away. “Ever thought of expanding?”
“Out west, you mean.” Brett tilted his head and studied him. “I might, if I had someone I trusted to deal with.”
“Someone who knew how business was done in that part of the world?”
“That someone would make me look seriously in that direction.” Brett nodded. “She’ll be fine, you know.” He met Cole’s gaze. “I think she’s halfway to realizing the same thing you did, and Digby is hovering and waiting to pick up the pieces.”
Head close to Victoria’s, hanging on every word, Digby certainly did look like a man infatuated. Victoria looked flushed and happy too. She deserved someone who could understand and appreciate her.
That did make him feel better. Cole didn’t relish failing Victoria another time. Going forward with this relationship, having it end in marriage, would be an even worse mistake, however. He needed to set them both free.