Anthology - BIG SKY GROOMS

by DAVIDSON, Carolyn. MALLERY, Susan. WILLIAMS, Bronwyn (in) Montana Mavericks

  “Pretty,” he said. “A gift?”

  “No, I—yes. Sir, do you think—that is, could you possibly…?”

  “Probably not,” he admitted truthfully, his eyes meeting hers. Her eyes were startlingly beautiful, even surrounded by a heavy layer of paint. “You don’t have to worry, though, I’ll pay for your time.”

  Then he looked in the mirror and winced. His nose looked even worse than it felt. He was probably going to be breathing through his mouth for the foreseeable future. Good thing he wasn’t out to impress anyone with his looks.

  “Oh, no, you don’t have to pay me. But if you stay here, Cam might think—” And then, struck by the alternative, she blurted, “But if you leave too soon, he’ll think—”

  Will knew precisely what the manager would think if he left now. That Lizzy had failed one more trial. Although why he should care if her boss kicked her out on her bony little backside was beyond him.

  Still, he couldn’t help but wonder if she had a place to go.

  Easy question. If she had another place to go, she wouldn’t be here trying to hustle a paying customer when it was plain as day she hadn’t a clue about how to go about it. The wonder was why she’d been hired in the first place.

  “Listen, I’d like to help you, but—”

  “I know. Please, you don’t have to explain. Let me sponge off your trousers and I can rinse out your shirt. Of course, they’ll still be wet…unless you’d care to wait until they dry? But then, Cam…”

  She looked ready to burst into tears. God help him if that happened. He was exhausted, but diplomacy didn’t require much energy. “I’m tempted, Lizzy, I surely am, but I’ve been traveling all week. I arrived in town this afternoon, so you see, I wouldn’t be very good company, even if I were—” He almost said, even if he were interested, but stopped just in time. The poor girl couldn’t help her looks.

  Well, actually, he thought as he pressed the wet towel against his swollen nose, she could. Someone should tell her that whatever her natural hair color was, it had to be prettier than bright orange. And her face didn’t need all that paint. Didn’t need any at all, now that he’d taken time to look more closely. She had a small nose, a high forehead, pretty teeth—a rarity in itself—and a jaw that might even be called elegant if it weren’t for the stubborn tilt of her chin.

  Interesting face, Will mused as he wet the towel again and used it to blot the front of his pants. “Are we spending enough time up here to satisfy your boss?”

  Lizzy forced herself to look away from the big, bare-chested stranger who was using her soap, her water, her towel. In her bedroom. “I’m afraid he’ll expect money. How long does it usually take?”

  “How long does what take?”

  She looked at him suspiciously. Surely that wasn’t laughter she saw in his eyes…was it? There was nothing even faintly humorous in the situation. “You know. It.”

  “It?”

  Impatience overrode embarrassment. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, you know what I mean! How long would it take for Cam to think that you—that I—that we—”

  “Engaged in a bit of commerce?”

  She could feel herself flushing. If her face got any hotter, her face paint would probably melt and drip down on her bosom. The bosom she’d been advised to pad, as nature hadn’t endowed her with enough to fill out the bodice that was part of her working costume.

  A large man, with a square, clefted chin and square, capable hands, he lifted a questioning brow. “How much do you charge?”

  “Charge?”

  “How much would it cost me if I decided to take advantage of your…offer?” He picked up his shirt, sniffed, scowled, and gingerly slid his arms into the sleeves.

  “Oh. You mean if I—”

  “Right. If we, meaning you and I, climbed into the bed and did what Cam thinks we’re supposed to be doing.”

  Will didn’t think her face could get much hotter without bursting into flames. “Two dollars,” she whispered. “I get to keep fifty cents. Some girls charge more because they’re—well, I guess you could say they’re experts. I’m only a beginner.”

  Only a beginner. If she had to live on what she earned on her back, no wonder the poor girl was so skinny. Abruptly, he pulled off his soggy shirt, slid the only chair in the room over to the small window and draped it over the back. He hated wet clothes. Being caught in the rain up in the high meadows on a hot day was one thing—getting doused with whiskey was another.

  “We’ve been up here just about long enough to have earned your commission.” He doubted if any of her paying customers lingered too long—unless they were drunk enough to pass out. But then, she’d said she was a beginner. Probably didn’t know enough to keep a man entertained for more than a few minutes.

  Funny thing, though…he couldn’t quite make up his mind about the look in her eyes. Was it hope? Fear? Desperation? He was pretty sure it wasn’t greed. A greedy woman would have tried harder. No matter what a woman looked like, if she really knew her business, there were ways of seducing a man, regardless of how tired he was.

  This one admittedly didn’t know her business. She dropped onto the edge of the bed, removed her left shoe and began rubbing her foot. It was then that he noticed that the foot was considerably smaller than the shoe. No wonder she’d stumbled. “You need a smaller size.”

  “A what?”

  He nodded to the red satin pump she had tossed onto the bed. “Next time, get the right size and look for a pair with lower heels and maybe ribbon ties.”

  “These aren’t my own.”

  “Then why the devil are you wearing them?”

  “Cam makes all of us wear the same costumes. These belonged to one of the girls who quit to get married. Cam buys all our things and takes it out of our pay, so mostly he gets to keep everything whenever someone leaves, because who would want to wear things like this if they didn’t have to?” Studiously avoiding looking at his bare chest, she plucked at the ill-fitting corselet.

  That answered one question, although why he should be interested, Will couldn’t have said. He wasn’t—not really. An inquiring mind was a tremendous asset when it came to business. When it came to women…

  Well, hell. A man had to do something to pass the time. He wasn’t interested in passing it in the usual manner, but if he left too soon she’d be in trouble with her boss. For some reason, the thought of her trooping up and down the stairs with a string of paying customers didn’t set right on his conscience.

  “So…tell me about yourself, Lizzy. Is that your real name?” He thought about the woman he had shared dinner with the night before he’d left Chicago. Delilah DeLyte.

  “Hmm—almost.”

  “Almost. Let me guess. Dizzy? Tizzy?”

  She blinked several times in rapid succession, causing flecks of black mascara to break off. If she burst into tears, Will told himself, he was out of here. One thing he’d never been good at was dealing with a woman’s tears. Not even a woman like Dizzy Lizzy.

  Instead she laughed. Dimples appeared in her cheeks and two tiny wrinkles marred the bridge of her small nose.

  Delighted in spite of himself, he said encouragingly, “So, you’re Lizzy…?”

  “Price,” she admitted after only the briefest of hesitations.

  “I’m Will, Miss Price. Now that we’ve been properly introduced, tell me about yourself. Where you came from, how you came to be here.” His wide gesture included the Double Deuce, Whitehorn and all of Montana. Her accent said South, but south covered a lot of territory.

  And what the hell—he had nothing better for the next few minutes. Caleb had probably already gone back out to the ranch.

  She turned the tables on him. “Was that your brother downstairs with you? You look alike. Cam called him, um—Kincaid?”

  Clever lady. The Kincaid name was still the most prominent name in the territory, although it was no longer a territory now. A few years ago congress had conferred statehood on the vast, untamed rea
ches of God’s most beautiful creation. Didn’t change much, so far as Will could tell. The skies were still as vast, the waters as clear, the mountains as high and the prairies still rolled on forever, statehood or not.

  Waiting for him to answer, Lizzy flexed her shoulders and sighed. Will touched his swollen nose and sighed. When the silence grew uncomfortable, he wondered why the devil he didn’t simply get up, sling his wet shirt over his shoulders and leave. It wouldn’t be the first time a man had come downstairs with his shirt-tail out. The new management, if anything, was rougher than the old.

  And besides, he was under no obligation here. Actually, the lady owed him. She’d cracked him in the nose with the edge of her tray, causing his nose to bleed all over his front, doused him with two doubles, and then made matters worse by trying to wash his clothes while they were still on his body.

  Not that he was about to take off his pants. No sir, when it came to women, his survival instincts were sharp as a mule deer’s hooves. And big blue eyes notwithstanding, this one was not his problem. Warily, he glanced across the small room, wondering how soon he could walk away with her safety and his own dignity more or less intact.

  Blue tears, peppered with tiny black chips of mascara, zigzagged down her cheeks. “I’b sorry,” she sobbed. “I dever cry. Dow’t look at be, please.”

  Oh, shoot, her nose was in as bad shape as his own. He’d have handed her his handkerchief, but between them, they’d already ruined it. “Dry your tears,” he said, and handed her the towel. It was wet, but she took it and held it against her face for several moments.

  Mopped and blotted, her face was a clown’s nightmare. Will rose and went to stand over her. Removing the towel from her hand, he dipped it into the basin again, wrung it out and picked up the sliver of soap. “Here, hold your face up,” he growled.

  And then she growled. At least her belly did. “You hungry?” he asked before he could stop himself. There was no way he was going to take her out to dinner. Just no way. In the first place, he had a reputation to establish if he wanted to be taken seriously as a banker. In the second place, neither one of them was fit to be seen in public.

  She shook her head, then nodded. “I couldn’t eat after Cam told me I had to—that is, I can never eat when I’m worried.”

  No wonder she reminded him of a starving cat. He’d seen more curves on the trunk of a cottonwood tree. “Does this place run to room service?”

  She shook her head. “Cheese and pickled eggs at the bar.”

  “A man used to be able to order a decent sandwich here. Downstairs, I mean,” he added, lest she think he was too familiar with the second floor. “Come to think of it, I haven’t had dinner, either. Why don’t I see what I can do about it?”

  “Cam doesn’t like for us to have food in our rooms on account of mice.”

  Why am I doing this? Will wondered a few minutes later as he loped halfway down the stairs and signaled to the new owner, who served as his own bartender. “What does it take to get a meal around here these days? Does Mrs. Harroun still send over a tray?”

  “Working up an appetite, are ye? Glad to hear it, son. Tell the truth, I didn’t hold out much hope for that one. If the gent that left her here didn’t owe me more than I can afford to lose, she’d not’ve lasted out the first day.”

  Will didn’t know what he was talking about, nor did he have any intention of getting involved. He ordered two beefsteak dinners and a pot of coffee sent up to the room, handed over the stated price, which was considerably more than the same would have cost in the finest restaurant in Chicago. A few minutes later, he climbed the stairs again, his feet dragging. Just down the street in Amos Carlton’s hotel, his own bed was waiting. There wasn’t a single reason why he had to hang around a noisy saloon, playing nursemaid to an inept lady of the evening.

  “Dinner’s on the way,” he announced, letting himself back inside the ugly little room. For some reason it struck him that the room was all wrong for the woman—hardly more than a girl—who managed to look both tawdry and oddly dignified. This whole damned setup was out of kilter. But that was her problem, he told himself—not his.

  Lizzy hadn’t moved except to unpin her awful hair. “If it’ll make you feel any more secure, Cam is happy to see you’re settling into your job.”

  Without the paint, there was no mistaking her sudden pallor. “Lizzy? Are you all right? Supper’ll be here as soon as the boy can fetch it from across the road.”

  She nodded, a mop of stiff orange curls bobbing with every motion. “Thank you. I don’t know why you’re being so kind.”

  Damned if he knew, either. He’d heard any number of fanciful tales from various saloon girls. At least half of them were royal princesses, to hear them tell it. Oddly enough, with her face scrubbed clean, this one just might have had a shot at convincing him. There was something almost regal about the way she held her head when she got all defensive.

  Only she hadn’t tried to convince him of anything.

  “By the time supper gets here, my shirt’ll be dry enough. We’ll eat, then I’ll pay for all night and slip out the back way. You should be able to get a good night’s sleep.”

  He waited for a response. If she burst into tears again, he was walking out, supper or no supper. And he was hungry, not having taken time to eat since breakfast. Ruth’s fry bread and coffee wasn’t enough for a man with healthy appetites.

  She didn’t cry. Back as stiff as a board, she stared at him with that wary look in her eyes and said softly, “I appreciate it more than I can say. If ever I’m in a position to return the favor—” Her words trailed off.

  Will could have made the obvious remark, but he didn’t. He’d known a lot of women in his life, respectable and otherwise. He still didn’t know what to make of this one, and for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why he was even here. He sure as hell wasn’t interested in what she was selling.

  An hour later he paid Cam the going rate for an all-night stay, headed upstairs again and then crept along the balcony and down the back stairs, confident that he’d done everything in his power to see that Miss Lizzy Price would have at least one undisturbed night.

  Back at the hotel he asked to be awakened at noon, then collapsed in his bed, taking time only to remove his shoes and his necktie.

  CHAPTER THREE

  BY THE TIME Will had bathed, dressed and gobbled down three eggs, a stack of flapjacks, half a dozen slices of bacon and a couple of pints of coffee the next morning, he felt considerably more optimistic. It didn’t take long to locate the lot he wanted for his bank and to track down the owner. It turned out to be the gentleman Caleb had mentioned, one Maximillian McCutcheon, rumored to have made his money in several highly suspect ventures.

  Presenting himself at the man’s home, Will stated his interest and then braced himself for some serious dickering. He declined a drink, knowing a clear mind would be to his advantage. Evidently, McCutcheon knew it, too, for he waved toward a chair and proceeded to examine everything from the cut of Will’s suit to the high gleam on his fashionable oxfords.

  “Well now, I’ll tell you the honest truth, Mr. Kincaid,” the older man declared, which in Will’s experience was a warning that what he was about to hear was a mixture of lies and truth, at best. “I hadn’t figured on letting that piece go for a few years. Bought it on speculation, and judging from the way the town’s growing, it’ll double in value every year I hold on to it. So you see, I’d be losing money if I was to let you have it now.”

  The door opened and a woman poked her head into the office. Will judged her to be in her middle twenties. Neither plain nor pretty, she was overdressed for a Thursday morning in a small Montana town. “Papa, I told you yesterday I need you to wire that order! Haven’t you done it yet? The party is next—” Noticing Will’s presence, she modified her tone. “Oh, excuse me, I didn’t know you had a guest.”

  “Never mind, missy, come inside and meet Mr. Kincaid. You know the Kincaid ranch up north
of town? Will here just moved back to town after a stay back East.”

  Will hadn’t mentioned the ranch, his stay in the East, or anything except for his interest in a certain piece of property. Evidently Maximillian McCutcheon had done his homework. The young woman entered, her bronze taffeta gown rustling audibly, and held out her slender hand. With no hint of the irritation he felt at the interruption, Will smiled, nodded and accepted the polite overture. He hadn’t retained his bachelor status this long without learning to read the signs. McCutcheon was on the lookout for a man who could afford to take on the care and feeding of his daughter.

  No, thank you. As much as I want a deed to your property, I don’t want any strings attached.

  McCutcheon was good at the game, but Will was easily his equal. Shortly before noon they came to terms, and after declining an invitation to luncheon, Will left with a signed agreement to pay three times what the property was presently worth. From there he went directly to office of the lawyer who had served his father. The faces behind the desks were new, but nothing else had changed, not even the ornate brass hat rack.

  Leaving the office some forty-five minutes later, he felt like jumping up and clicking his heels together. A few years ago he might have done just that. Instead, he allowed himself a calm, mature glow of satisfaction. Once word got out that he’d paid top dollar for his bank lot, the land around it would appreciate in value. It would be a good idea to buy up as much as possible purely on speculation. Paper investments were good, but the right land in a new and growing state was even better.

  All in all, he congratulated himself, he’d had a damned good day. He’d escaped McCutcheon’s lair with the one thing he needed to get started on his bank, and managed to sidestep the lure of his daughter, as well. It occurred to him that the neighborhood he’d just left was probably the right area to start looking for a house of his own. He had assumed he’d start out living out at the ranch, with plenty of time to decide, but that was before he’d learned that Caleb had a new family of his own now. Too many things had changed over the years since he’d left home.