by Sara Orwig
The ladies turned and swept out as Dulcie watched them. The hurt she had felt earlier was growing stronger, because she didn’t want Dan to love a cold, snobbish woman. Louisa was beautiful, but not any prettier than beautiful women Dulcie had known. Louisa didn’t deserve someone like Dan, but men were foolish where beautiful women were concerned. Dulcie turned her attention to Lyle, who shrugged.
She leaned on the counter and lowered her voice, “Sorry, Lyle. I ran them away.”
“Oh, hell, Miss Dulcie, that’s all right. These uppity ladies are a pain in the ass if you ask me, which you didn’t. Your gals and you do enough business here, I don’t want you going to my competition. Those three will come back.”
“I’ll hurry so I don’t run off your other customer.”
“You won’t run her off. What can I do for you?”
Dulcie got out her list, and a half-hour later she had gathered all the supplies she needed. Lyle helped her load them into her carriage, and she went down the boardwalk, heading toward the shoe shop. Planks had been put down across the wide, frozen street of hardpacked snow, glistening now because the weather was finally beginning to warm.
Dulcie had started to cross the street when she slipped. She yelped as she went down, striking her hip sharply on the ice. One man laughed, and another whooped as her skirts flew high. She sat up and started to rise as a hand reached down. The girl who had been in the store helped her up. She looked no older than sixteen.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. I don’t have any dignity left to ruin, and the rest of me is all right. Thanks for your help, miss.”
“O’Malley.”
“You’re Mary O’Malley! I knew Silas. I’m Dulcie Hazelwood.”
“How do you do,” Mary said, smiling.
“Miss O’Malley, you shouldn’t stand here and talk to me. Some of the ladies won’t approve of you if you associate with me.”
To Dulcie’s surprise, Mary O’Malley laughed and her eyes twinkled. “I’m not worried about town ladies disapproving of me!”
Dulcie liked her instantly, and remembered Dan fuming about her, talking about her throwing skillets at him. Dulcie smiled. “Maybe we have some things in common.”
“I’d like to hear about Silas. You should stop at my boardinghouse sometime. It’s on Larimer Street.”
“I might do that. Thank you, Miss O’Malley.”
Mary nodded and strode on. Dulcie glanced at the men calling out to her to give them another good show. She grinned, hiked up her skirts, and crossed the street carefully, walking on the planks and avoiding the ice.
7
Dan strode through the snow up the steps to the boardinghouse. He had taken time from his job and had made an appointment to see Mary O’Malley at three in the afternoon. It would take only minutes to tell her about the money, and his conscience bothered him that he hadn’t done so sooner. He let the knocker fall with a thud against the door as he noticed a crack in a front window and the worn, weathered boards.
The door opened, and Mary faced him. Her cheeks were flushed, and wisps of unruly tendrils escaped from the tight braids wrapped around her head. “Come inside, Mr. Castle.”
“Thanks. It’s freezing today.” Stomping the snow off his boots, he followed her into a warm front parlor. The furniture was well-worn, but there was a coziness to the braided rugs and a simplicity that was refreshing in a time when styles dictated fancy frills and crowded rooms.
Mary motioned to a chair as he shed his thick coat. His golden hair was tousled and in disarray, and once again she thought how handsome he was. While she sat down on a chair, Dan Castle sat facing her on the settee. He withdrew papers from his coat pocket and leaned forward, his hands on his knees.
“You never have told me how you met Silas.”
“He saved my life.” Thickly lashed blue eyes gazed at her steadily while he related how renegades had captured him and intended to rob and kill him, when Silas rode into sight.
“Silas is an unusual man,” Dan added.
“Yes, indeed, he is,” she said, her features softening and a yearning coming to her voice.
“We rode away from the bandits and later split up. Silas headed north to the gold fields while I turned south,” he said, noticing how intently she listened to him. She leaned forward slightly, sitting as still as a tiny bird on a branch as she gave him her full attention. “I hadn’t ridden long when a band of Comanche made me reverse my path. I had to go back the way I came, and this time I saved Silas from an ambush.”
Fright flared in her features, and Dan hastened to reassure her. “Don’t worry, he’s all right. We traveled together, and he talked me into prospecting with him. We struck a vein in Montana.”
“You did!” Her eyes seemed to widen endlessly, and Dan saw hope flare in her expressive features. “He’ll be coming home?”
Silently Dan cursed Silas for not writing to Mary and for not returning to the Colorado Territory. He knew his next words would hurt her. “Sorry, Miss O’Malley. He wants to come back to you a millionaire, and we didn’t do that well.”
Mary felt a pang that hurt more than she would have guessed. After all this time without word from Silas, she thought she had grown accustomed to his absence, and had prepared herself for the fact that he might not come back, but for a moment her hopes had soared. Now they plummeted back to reality, and it hurt badly to know that money was of more value to Silas than her love.
Dan suspected she was trying to hide her hurt, but it was pitifully transparent. The money should help a little.
He leaned closer and detected a sweet scent of roses, and he noticed that except for the smattering of freckles across her nose, she had creamy, flawless pale skin. “Silas rode back to California to see if he could make another strike. He said he wasn’t one to write letters.”
“I know he’s not,” she stated quietly, winding her fingers together in her lap and still keeping her face averted as she stared out a window.
“But he saved what he made in Montana. That’s why I’m here. He wanted me to give half to you.” Dan waited to see the surprise and joy in her eyes as he watched her turn to stare at him. He smiled at her. “It’s a lot of money.”
Her face flushed and her high small breasts strained against her bodice as she drew a deep breath. “Silas sent me a lot of money?”
“Yes, he did,” Dan said. He wondered if money were so important to Mary O’Malley, just as it was to Silas, but then remembered that she probably needed it badly to keep the boardinghouse going. His gaze went around the room swiftly, taking in the slightly threadbare furniture, and he was pleased to think Silas had made this provision for her even if he hadn’t returned to her.
“I’ve put the money in the bank for you. I made all the arrangements, and it’s in your name. You can draw it out as you please.” Dan rustled the papers in his hand. “I’m sorry I didn’t get it to you sooner,” he said with another twinge of guilt. “If you remember our first meeting, you didn’t give me much of a chance. Nonetheless, it’s yours and in the bank. Silas was firm—”
“You can take that money to Old Harry and build a fire with it!”
Startled, Dan looked up as she stood and pointed to the door. “And you may leave, Mr. Castle. The next time you see Silas, you tell him it isn’t money that’s important to me. How could he send money and not write or come home?”
“Hey! Wait a minute, Irish! The man’s in love with you!”
“Love? What kind of love is this?” She put her hands on her hips and glared at him. “I haven’t seen Silas for years!”
“He loves you so much he doesn’t want to come home until he’s made a million and can treat you royally. He sent you a fortune. Now, here are the papers.”
Grasping the proffered papers, she ripped them apart. “That’s what I think of the money!”
“You don’t even know how much it is.”
“I don’t care how much,” she snapped, torn between anger and sorrow
. Tears began to well up in her eyes, and she was mortified at the thought of crying in front of this stranger.
“You have to care,” Dan said, his patience slipping. “It’s fifteen thousand dollars.”
Mary’s jaw dropped, and she stared at him. Fifteen thousand dollars. Even when Silas had made thousands, he still wouldn’t return home to her! Hurt and anger engulfed her. “Get out of my house!”
“Look, you need those papers. We can glue them back together or I can go back to the bank and talk—”
“I don’t want a penny of it! I won’t take it!”
“It’s in your name and it’s yours.”
“I won’t touch it.”
“I know you can use it. That’s obvious. And Silas wants you to have it,” Dan argued. Her reaction astounded him because he couldn’t imagine anyone who would turn down money, particularly someone as badly in need of it as Mary O’Malley. “That’s your damned stubborn Irish pride talking.”
“It isn’t pride! If he had that much and he…”
Dan realized what she had been about to say. If Silas had really loved her, he would have come home to her. “Look, Silas is a man with a mission, but he loves you. You were all he talked about. He told me about your favorite foods, your favorite song, and your favorite time of the year. I have heard him sing your praises by the hour!”
She shook visibly as Dan Castle’s words made it more difficult for her to stop the tears from falling from her eyes. “I won’t take a cent!”
“You don’t have to. It’s yours already.”
“It’ll rot in the bank!” she exclaimed, mortified that she might cry.
“Now, that is just bullheaded cussedness!” Dan snapped.
She drew herself up and glared at him. “We’re through with this discussion. Get off my property, or I’ll send for the sheriff!”
“How he fell in love with a woman who is as fiery and stubborn as you, I’ll never know!” Dan wanted to shake her. She was too tiny and too young to cause so much confounded trouble.
“There are some things about women you don’t understand.” Scooping up the papers, she stepped to Dan’s side, took his arm firmly, and propelled him toward the door.
“I’m sure when you think about it, you’ll be reasonable and take the money. Silas loves you. He did it for you.”
She opened the front door and handed Dan his coat. “Good day, Mr. Castle.” She flung the bank papers at him and slammed the door in his face. Dan stood there staring at the door.
“Irish, you are stubborn as an old bandy-legged mule,” he said, his fists on his hips. He was torn between kicking open the door and arguing further, and ignoring the papers and leaving Miss O’Malley to her poverty-stricken life. Suddenly he laughed and shook his head.
“Silas, you didn’t warn me that the woman you love is a little firecracker!” he said softly, picking up the torn bits of paper. He smoothed them out and glanced at the total: fifteen thousand two hundred dollars, actually. His gaze went over the cracked pane and the worn boards, and he remembered Mary O’Malley’s patched dress. He sighed and jammed the papers in his pocket.
Early the next morning Dan stopped to see Dulcie. “I finally got around to calling on Mary O’Malley to give her the money.”
“Well, it took you long enough!” Dulcie said. She sat in a chair facing him and her heart beat swiftly. He had come rushing in from the cold and he looked so handsome. His face was flushed, his hair tangled, and the thick sheepskin coat emphasized his broad shoulders. She wished she had known he was coming, and worn something more revealing. She ached for him, and with a painful twist remembered Louisa Shumacher, who was cold and unfriendly.
Dulcie had known all along that someday a woman would come along and catch his fancy, but now that it had happened, it hurt badly. He paced up and down the room, and it was difficult to resist going to him and putting her arms around him.
“I thought she’d be overjoyed.” He whirled around. “Wouldn’t you be overjoyed?”
“Of course I would, sweetie,” she answered dryly. “If a man gave me fifteen thousand dollars, I’d be delighted.”
“Then why isn’t she? She ripped up the bank papers.”
For the first time Dulcie began to pay attention to what he was saying instead of to Dan himself. “She what?”
“I’ve been telling you, Dulcie, she tore up the papers and threw them at me.”
“I’ll be damned!” Dulcie threw back her head and laughed.
“It isn’t funny either.”
Instantly she sobered. “I know it’s not. Just momentarily, the vision of her flinging all that money in your face astounded me.” Silently she praised Mary O’Malley for having enough spunk to defy both Silas and Dan.
“She needs the money. Silas wants her to have it.”
“Doesn’t that fool Silas realize this girl wants his love, not his money?”
“I tried to tell him that. But she can still want him while she uses the money he gave her. If she marries him, he’ll spend it on her anyway.”
“I met her. She looks young.”
“She looks fifteen years old, but sometimes she acts as if she’s one hundred. Dammit, I could just shake her!”
“So now what will you do?” Dulcie asked coolly, enjoying the situation.
“I don’t know, dammit. If she didn’t need it so badly, I’d forget all about it.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Dulcie said softly. “You’re too softhearted to forget it when it concerns Silas or her.”
“She wears patched dresses, and the boardinghouse looks as if it will fall down on her head. She is the most stubborn little snippet—” He ran his hands through his hair, and Dulcie bit back a smile. It was seldom that a woman had Dan tied in knots. So far she couldn’t think of any since the fabulous Melissa Hatfield.
“And what’s worse,” he said, pausing suddenly in front of her, “I think she loves him and she’s hurt by the money. I swear I think she tried her damnedest to fight tears. That Silas! I’ll knock him flat when I see him again, for getting me into the middle of this.”
“The money will keep. Just forget it, Dan.”
“I want to forget it, but then I think about Silas wanting her to have it so badly that he would risk life and limb, and I look at her needing it so badly…Dulcie, would you—?”
“No. I know exactly what you’re thinking, but ladies in town don’t talk to me. And frankly, darling, if there is a woman on earth that you can’t persuade to do something, she isn’t going to listen to me.”
He laughed, and a momentary smile crossed his face. Dulcie knew she wasn’t in his thoughts at all except as a friend to hear his worries.
“I met Mary O’Malley,” she said. “I slipped on the ice and she helped me up. She’s nice, Dan.”
“She’s a fiery-tempered baggage!”
Dulcie wanted to cry out that she had been nicer than Louisa Shumacher, who wouldn’t even stay in the same store with her, who wouldn’t have helped her in her fall if she had broken her arms and legs. Instead, she was afraid to speak out against Louisa, afraid it would send Dan away, and she realized how vulnerable she was. She had let her heart grow warm by loving Dan. Now she would pay for it.
“I’ll try again,” he said with another long sigh. “Dammit, she’s difficult! She looks as if the first big wind would blow her right through town, but she can handle bull-whackers and renegades as well as a man.”
“If I didn’t know you so well, I wouldn’t believe you.”
“I’m going to work, Dulcie. I’ll be back later,” he said casually, brushing her cheek with a kiss. But she knew he probably wouldn’t return for several days.
“You work too hard, Dan,” she said, sliding her fingers along his shoulder. “Your crew won’t be at work for another two hours.”
“I want to make a place for myself here, and hard work will eventually give me what I want.”
It was still early in the February morning, an hour before most pe
ople would be stirring. Snow crunched beneath Dan’s feet, and as he strode down the street, he thought about the town and his future. Denver had a population of over five thousand people now, and it seemed to be growing daily. Dan’s home, the one for Lester Potter, and Dulcie’s wouldn’t catch the attention of the men in town who could afford the type of house Dan longed to build. But Benjamin Corning had contacted him, asking him to draw up plans. A six-bedroom house, it would be one of the fanciest in Denver when finished, and Dan prayed he got the contract.
A man and woman hurried across the road ahead of him. With a perfunctory greeting, the couple passed him and hurried away, but for an instant Dan thought of his mother, Hattie. It had been weeks since her last letter, and he wondered if she would ever reconsider returning home to the ranch in New Mexico Territory. His thoughts went back to his childhood, and he could remember the countless times he had seen Javier, his father, return home and swing Hattie up in his arms. She would laugh, her hands on Javier’s shoulders as he set her down and kissed her. A wave of sadness overcame him momentarily, because Dan hated to think of Javier alone. He was a man meant to have a woman at his side, a man deeply in love with his wife. Yet Dan could understand the rage and hurt Hattie had felt when she discovered Javier had given away Hattie’s daughter so many years ago. Dan frowned as he thought about the pain his family had experienced, April’s years of growing up without her family, Javier’s regrets and guilt, and Hattie’s fury. There was no way to undo the past. And Dan prayed his was buried forever.
Dan squared his shoulders, his stride lengthening as he thought about the house his men were completing. He wanted it to be the best possible. He had no patience with slipshod methods. He had discussed the matter with each man he hired, making sure they had some experience, and checking their work to see if it met with his standards.
He rounded the corner and studied the carriage in front of the Potter house. Dan quickened his step, wondering who had stopped and why. He took the front steps two at a time and stomped snow off his feet before opening the door and entering. A man stood in the front parlor, his back to Dan, but he turned at the sound of footsteps. His tall beaver hat was dusted with snow.