“You’re not going to stay with me tonight?”
“No.”
She was quiet for a few minutes, as he dressed. His back was to her, but he could feel her eyes on him. Wanting, hoping, loving eyes. Hell, this was a mistake. He wasn’t ever going to get tired of her, and she wasn’t going to surrender and decide to go home.
“All right,” she whispered. “If that’s what you want.”
He turned and watched Eden collect her nightgown from the floor and pull it on, her movements slow and easy. She crawled into the bed and slipped under the covers with a soft sigh of contentment. He expected tears, pleading, a request for just one kiss before he left.
But instead, she smiled and wished him good night, and then she closed her eyes. Perfectly agreeable. Unmistakably satisfied.
Damn it, Eden had him right where she wanted him, didn’t she?
* * *
“Uncle Jed! Uncle Jed!”
Jed turned just as Millie threw herself at him. He caught the little girl and lifted her from her feet. As always, a more sober Teddy was right behind her.
“What are you doing up so early?” he asked. After all, it was not yet light outside.
“We have school,” she said with a serious nod of her head, looking him directly in the eye as he held her. “And Mr. Reese said we’re going to learn all about the Alamo today. I don’t even know what an Alamo is!” She grinned widely.
“Well, then, this is an important day for you,” he said solemnly.
Reese, a teacher! He still had a hard time dealing with that change. As excited as Millie always was about learning something new, Reese must be as good a teacher as he was a captain. God knows Jed had never gotten excited about going to school!
“What about you?” he asked, looking down at Teddy. “Do you know what the Alamo is?”
Teddy nodded and gave him a look that said moron as clearly as if he’d spoken the word aloud.
It was so like Eden to take these kids in as her own. To make their lives better, to give them a home. They’d be better off in Georgia, too.
He twirled Millie around and then set her on her feet. “I’ve got an errand to run,” he said, “so I’d better get going.”
She waved him back down, waggling her fingers at him. Knowing what was coming, he leaned down so she could give him a kiss on his stubbled cheek.
“What about you?” he asked, winking at Teddy. “Don’t you want to give your Uncle Jed a kiss, too?”
Teddy still didn’t talk much, but he did manage to emit a disgusted grunt as he walked past—without offering a kiss.
“I like Uncle Jed,” Millie said as the children walked toward the dining room. “I never had an uncle before. Don’t you like Uncle Jed?” she asked.
Teddy glanced over his shoulder and looked directly at Jed. The kid was small, skinny even, but the look he gave Jed was audacious.
“No,” he said, quite clearly.
* * *
She’d put off giving Grady’s room a good cleaning, not anxious to reenter the room where the sweet old man had died. Still, she couldn’t leave it closed off forever. Eventually she might need the space, if the hotel became successful.
All morning she’d been cleaning the guest rooms, Rico right behind her. He was more vigilant than ever since someone had taken a shot at her down by the river. Every now and then he’d look up and down the hall as if he expected to see an armed assassin waiting there, and the way he caressed his knife gave Eden a chill. He was definitely comfortable with the weapon.
Very early this morning they’d received word of Lydia’s whereabouts. A cowboy from a ranch outside town had come to town for a visit to the saloon, and he’d mentioned to Kate that his boss had recently married Lydia. Kate had told Cash the news sometime before sunup. Jedidiah had left for the ranch shortly after that. The news only confused Eden. If Lydia had run off to marry a rancher, then who was trying to run her out of Rock Creek?
She took a deep breath and opened the door to Grady’s room, expecting stale odors and bad memories. But the window was open to allow a breeze to circulate, and a familiar calico-covered derriere was hoisted in the air, as the intruder looked under the bed.
“Ethel?”
Ethel bumped her head on the bed as she quickly withdrew. She rubbed the spot gingerly as she came to her feet. “Eden, my goodness, you gave me a fright.”
“What are you doing here?” Part of the room had been cleaned, but for the most part everything was simply topsy-turvy. The mattress was askew, the quilt had been tossed onto the floor, and the box containing Grady’s personal belongings, what little there was, had been opened and obviously searched.
“I wanted to surprise you,” Ethel said with a wide smile. “Since you and Grady were such close friends, I decided it might distress you to go through his things and clean his room.”
“It’s true, the thought has not been pleasant.”
“The room was rather a mess.” Ethel looked around her. “It still is, but I’ve barely gotten started.”
“I can help,” Eden stepped toward the trunk and the scattered clothes on the floor. “Working together, it shouldn’t take us long to finish up.”
Was that a sigh she heard behind her? Surely not.
Eden glanced over her shoulder to Rico, who stood in the open doorway. “Why don’t you take a break and go get a cup of coffee.”
Rico shook his head and fingered his knife.
“You’re making me nervous,” Eden said with a smile. “If you stay, I’ll put you to work cleaning out the dust bunnies.”
The threat worked. Rico stepped back and then disappeared from view. She heard his footsteps on the stairs.
“You must be terrified,” Ethel said as she picked the quilt up off the floor. “I know I would be if someone had been threatening me.”
“It hasn’t been pleasant.”
“Why, I bet you can’t wait to get back to Georgia.” Ethel took the quilt to the open window and slipped it through the opening, then gave it a hearty shaking. She wrinkled her nose as dust particles danced back her way and filled the air, catching the sunlight.
Eden looked at Grady’s clothes. He’d been buried in his best suit, and what remained wasn’t much better than a pile of rags. “Oh, I’m not going back to Georgia.” She held up a particularly disgusting shirt. With a good washing, it might make a decent dust cloth. “Jedidiah and Sin think I plan to go quietly, but when the time comes I’ll tell them differently.”
Ethel pulled in the quilt and folded it over the foot of the bed. “So you plan to stay?”
Eden smiled. “Yes. I like this old hotel. I think with a little work it can be...”
With a sigh much like the one Eden had heard earlier, Ethel crossed the room and closed the door. When she turned to face Eden, her smile was gone.
“Why couldn’t you just leave?” she asked softly. “Most highfalutin ladies would’ve run out of town with their tails between their legs after finding that first note.” She slipped a hand into her bodice and pulled out a pearl-handled derringer.
Ethel? Chattering, sometimes-sweet, always-smiling Ethel was her enemy? Eden saw something new in Ethel’s usually empty eyes. Desperation.
“You can’t shoot me,” Eden whispered. “Rico knows you’re here.”
Ethel shrugged her shoulders, and using the weapon she gestured toward the window. “You’re right. I guess you’d better just jump.”
“I’m not going to jump,” Eden said with a lift of her chin. It was difficult to be scared of Ethel. The woman was not much bigger than she was, and they’d done dishes together, for goodness’ sake. And Ethel was a woman. Women simply didn’t go around shooting one another.
“But I would like to know why you’re doing this. Did I do something to offend you so much that you’d go to such lengths to run me out of town?”
Ethel shook her gun at Eden like it was a censuring finger. “You didn’t do anything but show up at a bad time. A very bad ti
me. My father and that old bastard Grady were partners, once. They made a big haul before the war. Gold. Grady made off with it. He’s hidden it somewhere in this hotel. I know it. And it’s mine! We ended up with nothing. My father died without a penny in his pockets, and I had two choices. I could marry a fat, greasy pig farmer or I could sell myself.”
“What about your sisters?” Eden asked softly, hoping to appeal to Ethel’s love of her family.
“There are no damn sisters!” she snapped. “I made them up. There was only me and Pop, for as long as I can remember. That gold is my legacy from him.”
Eden felt a new rush of fear. Ethel was growing frantic. A frantic woman might do anything. Anything at all. “If there’s gold here, you can have it,” she said. “I have no claim to whatever your father and Grady... confiscated. But Ethel”—she held Grady’s shirt aloft—“would a man who has a fortune in gold stashed away wear this shirt? Would he allow his hotel to practically fall down around his ears?”
“Grady was a crazy old man.” Ethel stepped forward, the derringer aimed steadily and unforgivingly toward Eden’s heart. “I don’t know why he lived this way when he had the gold, but I know he had it. He hid it somewhere.”
“If you can find gold here, you can have it.”
Ethel smiled. “You say that now, when I have a gun pointed at you, but what will you say when I’m unarmed and you’re surrounded by your guardians?”
“I don’t go back on my word,” Eden said.
With the derringer touching Eden’s chest, Ethel propelled her toward the window. “You’ll be gone. There will be no one to run the hotel. The men will move out, and I’ll have free run of the place to search it from top to bottom.”
“I told you...”
“You should’ve left when you had the chance,” Ethel whispered, just as Eden reached the open window.
She was going to die. Ethel was going to push her from the open window, and she was going to fall into the garden she had such hopes for. With the derringer now against her throat, Eden’s head actually went through the window.
And there, to her right, she saw a familiar boot precariously perched on a narrow ledge.
A brief knock on the door startled them both.
“Say a word and you and whoever that is at the door are both dead, you got it?” Ethel whispered.
Ethel spun around, the derringer concealed in the folds of her skirt. The door flung open, and Eden gratefully pulled her head into the room.
Cash gave Ethel a wide smile. “Ready to move back across the street where you belong, sweet thing?”
Ethel tilted her head slightly. “How on earth did you know where to find me?”
Cash nodded toward the hall. “Rico’s sitting in the lobby, half asleep. He said you girls were up here, cleaning.”
Eden felt movement behind her. If she hadn’t already seen the boot on the ledge, she probably would’ve screamed. A leg slipped silently through the window, snaking into view directly beside her. Another leg followed as Sin slithered, without making a sound, into the room.
“Cleaning,” Cash said, rolling his eyes. “Ethel, darling, you were meant for better things.” He took a long, casual step forward.
Ethel tensed. “I’ll head over to the saloon in a little while,” she said, her voice unnaturally high. “Let Eden and me finish up here....”
Sin moved in front of Eden, shielding her. He drew his gun and Cash took another step toward Ethel.
The telling sign might’ve been the look in Cash’s eyes or the soft sound of Sin’s weapon being drawn from its holster. Ethel suddenly realized what was happening, and she spun around as she raised her derringer. Next to Sin’s six-shooter, the weapon looked much less threatening than it had before.
“Drop it,” Sin said.
Ethel showed no signs of complying.
“Don’t shoot her, Sin,” Eden whispered. He didn’t pay her any mind at all, didn’t acknowledge her words.
But she realized, very quickly, that no one here wanted to see Ethel die. They simply wanted her to put down the derringer. With a hand on Sin’s back, Eden peeked around him and watched as Cash reached out and touched Ethel’s shoulder.
Ethel spun around and pointed the derringer at Cash. Surrounded, outnumbered, and outgunned, she panicked.
Cash reached out to take the pearl-handled derringer from Ethel, but she hung on tight. He forced her arm down, into a less threatening position, and the weapon discharged.
Cash cursed as he yanked the derringer away from Ethel. He uttered, quite clearly, the most vile words imaginable in bizarre combinations. He sprinkled in a few of Jedidiah’s favorite words, the ones that always made Eden blush. She didn’t dare chastise him.
Sin grabbed a disarmed Ethel from behind and held her arms tight behind her back as Nate and Rico burst into the room.
“She shot me!” Cash shouted, his hand pressed firmly over a spot high on his left thigh. He’d put all his weight on his right leg, and he stood there listing unsteadily to one side. Now that the initial shock was over, he limited himself to what was obviously his favorite curse word. “Shit!”
Nate offered Cash an arm of support and he took it, as Rico took custody of an unrepentant Ethel and led her from the room.
Eden stepped out from behind Sin, determined to do something useful. “Get him to bed. Not this one,” she said quickly. “The room across the hall is cleaner. Let’s have a look at that wound. Is there a real doctor in town?”
“Slow down, sweetheart,” Cash said calmly. “I’ll heal up across the street, in my own room. Nate can patch me up as well as any real doctor.” Or you. The unspoken censure hung in the air between them.
“At least wrap the wound tightly to slow the bleeding before you try to walk.” She bent over Grady’s chest and came out with a clean shirt.”This will do.” She turned to do the chore herself, but Cash lifted a hand to stop her, one finger demonstrative and insistent. Well, she had to admit the wound was in a rather delicate place.
Nate took the shirt from her and dropped down to wrap it around Cash’s thigh. “A couple inches to the left and a little higher,” he said with a smile, “and you’d have to restrict your immoral activities to gamblin’ and drinkin’.” There was too much good humor in his voice, given the dire circumstances.
“Just bind it up and let’s get out of here.” Cash glared at Sin. His impassive face didn’t reveal even a hint of the pain he had to be feeling. “You know, I haven’t lived a sainted life. In the back of my mind I guess I always figured that one day I’d get myself shot over a woman. I did assume, however,” he said crisply, “that it would be my woman.”
“Thank you, Mr. Cash,” Eden said, realizing that her thanks were insufficient. “I do so hate it that you were injured helping me.”
Cash cursed again as Nate led him from the room. He refused the offer of Sin’s added assistance, saying he would not be carried to his room like an invalid.
When they were alone, Eden slipped her arm around Sin’s waist and leaned into him. It was a wonderfully comforting feeling, warm and intimate. “How did you know?”
“Rico said the room looked like it had been searched, and he didn’t buy Ethel’s explanation. He said she looked shifty eyed.”
“I’m glad Rico is so observant. Otherwise...” She shivered. “Sin, Ethel was actually trying to push me out the window! She thinks Grady hid a fortune in gold somewhere in this old hotel, and since her father helped to steal it, she said it was hers. Her legacy. I would’ve let her have it, if there really was any gold. Do you think there is?” She looked up at him.
Sin ignored her question. “She could’ve shot you,” he said in an unaffected voice. There might not be any emotion in his voice, but he held her close and wrapped his arms completely around her. She could feel his relief and his fear. “At any moment while the two of you were alone. One afternoon while the two of you were cooking supper.” A note of fury crept into his voice.
“I don’t t
hink she really wanted to hurt me. She just wanted me to leave.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “It’s over,” she whispered.
“We still have the Merriweathers to contend with,” Sin said darkly.
“Maybe.” She looked up at Sin and smiled. “If I were a Merriweather, and I knew what I was up against, I’d stay as far away from Rock Creek as possible.”
Sin looked down at her. “Yeah, but I have a feeling you’re a lot smarter than the Merriweather brothers.” He touched her face. It was amazing to her that he could be so big, so hard, and still so gentle. “I just don’t want you hurt.”
“Because you love me?”
“Because I like you.”
“That’s something, I suppose.” She dropped her arms, let Sin go, and headed for the door. She still shook, a deep quiver from head to toe, but she felt no real fear. The danger was over, and her mind turned to more immediate matters. “I really should make Cash some soup. Will he ever forgive me?”
“Probably not.”
“I do make very good soup.”
Chapter 20
Eden made a conscious effort not to look from side to side as she walked through the saloon. It was not yet dark, but the evening had begun. Rough men drank, painted women laughed, and gamblers caressed their cards the way a lover might caress a woman’s flesh. She kept her eyes on the stairs at the rear of the room, even when she felt a growing number of eyes on her back.
Nate stayed close, and she could feel, too, the temptation this place held for him.
“Honey,” one of the saloon girls hollered, “if you’re going to visit Cash, you might as well save yourself the trip up the stairs. He’s kicked us both out already. Twice. He’s in a foul mood.”
Eden glanced over her shoulder. “Being shot is bound to put anyone in a foul mood. Besides,” she added, lifting her tray aloft, “I brought soup.”
She didn’t see any reason for laughter, but a few drunken men did just that. Turning her back on them all, Eden climbed the stairs. Nate stayed right behind her.
Sullivan (The Rock Creek Six Book 2) Page 22