Rocky Mountain Marriage

by Debra Lee Brown

  “No reason. Just exercising old Silas here.”

  She glanced at his mount, a tall black-and-white gelding. A paint. As horses went, Silas appeared to be an agreeable animal. Too bad the man riding him was not.

  “You left your trunk behind,” Chance said. “Better hope no one steals it.”

  “The bartender said he’d put it away for me. Besides, there’s nothing important in it.” Which was a lie. The letters her father had written her over the years, letters her mother had kept from her and that she’d only just discovered after Caroline Fitzpatrick’s funeral, were secreted away in the lining. “Everything I need I have with me.”

  Including the small brass key that had been tucked inside the envelope of his last letter to her, the letter informing her of her inheritance. She patted it inside the pocket of her dress as she walked. She had no idea what the key opened. On the stagecoach from Colorado Springs she’d been excited by the mystery. Now she just wanted to get as far away from the Royal Flush as possible.

  “You should have said something when you first arrived, about you being Wild Bill’s daughter.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t call him that.” Though it did seem fitting. Her childhood had been peppered with stories of her father’s wicked ways. It had been her mother’s way of insuring Dora steered away from men like that. Men like the man riding beside her, who, despite her numerous protests, seemed intent on escorting her back to town.

  “Why not? Everyone called him that. Besides, he liked the name.”

  “Did he? Well, that doesn’t surprise me.”

  “You sound angry.”

  “I’m not angry. I’m just…” Confused was what she was, though she’d never in a million years admit it to the likes of Chance Wellesley.

  She barely remembered her father. Growing up, all she’d known of him was what her mother had told her, and Caroline Fitzpatrick hadn’t painted a very pretty picture. Dora had believed every word of it—until she’d found the letters.

  “Funny he never told me.”

  “Told you what?”

  “That he had a daughter.”

  Dora stopped and looked at him. “Why would he? He left when I was five. I haven’t seen him since.” But he’d seen her.

  In his letters, her father had described his visits to Colorado Springs over the years, how he’d watch her from afar on her way to school or leaving church on Sundays. They were full of fatherly observations and practical advice. The last one, the one tucked carefully into her diary and that she’d read over and over on the stagecoach, had said how proud he was the day she’d become a teacher.

  “That doesn’t sound like Bill.”

  Now, after reading his letters, she didn’t know what to believe. Why hadn’t he made himself known to her? And why had her mother told her he didn’t want her, that he didn’t care? Her mother had obviously lied, but why?

  “You talk as if you’d known him well. Did you?”

  He sat back in the saddle, toying with what looked like a watch fob that hung from a short chain attached to his belt. “As well as anyone, I guess. I spent a lot of time in that saloon.”

  “Yes, you would, wouldn’t you? Given your profession.”

  “My profession.” He smiled at her in the moonlight, and for a moment she caught herself thinking how handsome he was. “You say it like it’s a dirty word.”

  “Well, you are a gambler, and you do work in a saloon.”

  “A saloon you own.”

  The reminder shocked her to her senses. She pulled her cloak tightly about her and continued her march toward town. “I plan to sell it, if you must know. That and whatever ranch land goes with it.”

  “Good luck. You’ll find out soon there aren’t any buyers.”

  “Really? I’m not stupid, Mr. Wellesley, despite what you may think of me on first impression. My father’s business appeared quite robust.”

  The rich sound of his laughter in the dark sent a shiver straight through her.

  “You have no idea what I think of you, Miss Fitzpatrick, and if you did, I suspect you’d slap me.”

  Of all the nerve! Dora quickened her pace.

  “And robust it may be, though I’ve never heard a saloon described quite that way before.”

  “I’m certain you know what I mean.” The image of a scantily clad employee waiting with a drunken cowboy in the long line outside one of the upstairs bedrooms popped unbidden into her mind.

  He laughed. “I know exactly what you mean.”

  “Hmph.” She kept walking, curtailing any further conversation with him. Though she didn’t know what to believe anymore—her mother’s warnings or her father’s adulation—one thing was clear to her.

  Chance Wellesley was trouble.

  He trotted along beside her, whistling bawdy tunes, while at the same time making certain she moved safely off the road when carriages rumbled by. She thought that bit of chivalry amusing, given his character.

  Why was he so interested in her? What would provoke a gambler she’d never laid eyes on before tonight to give up an evening of card-playing to see a schoolteacher on her way? She didn’t know and she didn’t care. She just wanted to get away from him.

  When at last they reached town, she headed straight down the muddy main street toward Last Call’s only hotel, the one she’d spied that afternoon when she’d first arrived.

  “There’s something you ought to know about your, uh, inheritance.” He didn’t say saloon, and for that she was grateful. To think she actually owned the place!

  “What’s that?” she said curtly, refusing to look at him again.

  “Your father owed a lot of money to a lot of people, some of them not so nice. The Flush is likely mortgaged to the hilt. The ranch land, too.”

  “How would you know?”

  “Let’s just call it a hunch.”

  “I don’t believe in hunches, Mr. Wellesley.” The bank was just ahead, across the street next to a law office. She’d make visits to both establishments first thing tomorrow morning.

  “No?”

  “No.” She shot him a hard look to make the point, then stopped in front of the hotel, relieved that the Vacancy sign she’d seen earlier that afternoon was still displayed in the window. “Well, here we are.”

  Chance dismounted and tied Silas to a hitching post jammed with other horses. Cowboys and miners and men of every description roamed the street. She’d never seen a town so small so busy, and at this time of night.

  “You see?” she said, turning toward him. “I was perfectly capable of getting here on my own.”

  “Maybe so. But you might be needing a ride back to the, uh, ranch, after all.” He nodded toward the hotel.

  She followed his gaze, then gasped, thunderstruck, as a hotel clerk snatched the Vacancy sign from the window.

  “Told you they’d be full up. One of the big mines outside Fairplay struck a lode last month. Paid off today. The town’s crawling with miners who’ve got money to burn. Can’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  She ignored him, marched up the steps to the hotel and threw herself on the mercy of the clerk. He had to find her a room. He just had to! Five minutes of pleading later, she was back on the street, fuming.

  Chance leaned casually against the hitching post, his hat pushed back on his head, that irritating grin of his aimed right at her.

  “I will not spend the night in that saloon.”

  “You sure?”

  “And I will not ride double with you on that horse.” It was out of the question. She never intended to be that close to him ever again.

  “It’s either that or walk back. Silas doesn’t take to people, especially women. In fact, he’s downright ornery. Likely he’d buck you off if you tried to ride him solo.”

  She eyed the horse. “He doesn’t look too terribly ominous. I’m sure I’ll manage.”

  “So you will come back to the Flush with me.”

  It appeared she had no choice, unless she wanted to slee
p in the street. If she had to stay the night in a saloon, at least it would be her saloon and not one of the questionable-looking drinking establishments lining Last Call’s main street.

  She approached the gelding and matter-of-factly untied him from the post. Silas looked at her, seemingly unconcerned. “I’m not with you, Mr. Wellesley. I’m simply borrowing your horse.”

  “Whoa, wait a minute. I meant what I said about him not liking women. It’s too dangerous for you to—”

  She ignored him and mounted without incident, then arranged her skirts as modestly as possible under the circumstances. Silas glanced back at her, waiting.

  “Well I’ll be a—” He gawked, first at the horse, then at her.

  “A what?” she said, casting him a smug expression. A number of nouns, all of them improper, came to mind.

  He smiled suddenly, his gaze heating with the same underlying carnality he’d exhibited in the saloon. She swayed a bit on the horse.

  “Come on,” he said, and took Silas’s reins from her hand. “I’ll lead.”

  Chapter Two

  Chance Wellesley knew a sure bet when he saw one.

  He sat in the window seat of the upstairs room he rented at the Royal Flush and, through a pair of opera glasses he’d won off a Denver politician in a poker game, watched Miss Eudora Elizabeth Fitzpatrick scribbling madly into what he’d thought last night was a bible.

  “Well I’ll be damned. It’s a diary!”

  He would have given his last plug nickel to know what she was writing in it.

  She’d made quite the commotion when they’d returned to the saloon last night. Delilah had tried to set her up in her father’s old room, but the intractable Miss Fitzpatrick would have none of it. He laughed, recalling the look of horror on her face when Delilah had suggested it.

  In the end, a few of the girls fixed up one of the cabins out back for her, and there she’d passed the night. He’d been up since dawn, waiting to see what she’d do next. Everybody knew schoolteachers rose early, and Wild Bill’s daughter proved to be no exception.

  She sat at the desk under the cabin’s single window, her back straight as a washboard, her lips pressed into a tight line, penning God knows what into that little red book of hers. In the morning light she looked different than she had last night. Younger, softer, almost pretty.

  He ran a hand over his beard stubble, then took a swig of hot coffee to clear his head. “You’re seeing things, Wellesley.”

  After wiping the lenses of the opera glasses with his handkerchief, he looked at her again. Nope. Nothing different, after all. Just a trick of the morning light. She had the same dishwater-blond hair, pale skin and wore the ugliest gray dress he’d ever seen.

  Not that it mattered. She was a woman, and women generally liked him. He didn’t have to like her. He’d made a bad start of things last night. Today he’d do better. By sundown she’d be mooning over him, and he’d know everything he needed to know about what her father might have told her before he died.

  He’d spent six long months at the Royal Flush, watching and waiting for Wild Bill to make a slip. He’d come too far to quit now. Maybe his daughter knew something the rest of the folks around here didn’t.

  Maybe she knew where the money was.

  Dora capped her fountain pen and sighed. She’d spent a sleepless night on a lumpy mattress huddled under a pile of musty blankets. The potbelly stove had gone out in the middle of the night, and when she’d gotten up to relight it she realized she had no matchsticks. This morning she’d found an old flint on the floor near the coal bin and in no time was toasty warm again.

  “Now, one last thing…” She slid her father’s final letter to her out of her diary and carefully reread every word.

  The small brass key that had accompanied it was still tucked safely away in her pocket. She fished it out and held it up to the sunlight streaming through the window. It had an odd marking on it, one she couldn’t decipher. She was certain the key fit something, but what? Nowhere in the letter had her father mentioned it. Why would he send her a key and not tell her what it opened?

  She had to admit, the enigma sparked her curiosity and appealed to her intellect. In secret, the past few months she’d been reading mystery novels in her room at night. Her mother, God rest her soul, would have been shocked had she known.

  Dora had begun her diary shortly after discovering her father’s letters to her. In it she wrote her most private feelings and thoughts, in addition to faithfully recording her observations regarding any unusual events. She’d learned something from those mystery novels, after all.

  Her journey to Last Call and the Royal Flush counted as perhaps the most unusual event of her life, and so she’d decided to record everything, including descriptions of the people she met. She’d wasted half a dozen pages this morning on Chance Wellesley alone. Perhaps now she could banish him from her mind.

  She returned her thoughts to the letter and read the most cryptic paragraph again.

  I know I haven’t been much of a father to you, Dora, but rest assured, your financial future is secure. I’ve left you something at the ranch. Something only you, seeing as how smart you are, will recognize. It’s the Chance of a lifetime, Dora. Take it.

  She held the key up to the sunlight and studied it closely. “The chance of a lifetime.” Whatever did he mean? As she pondered her father’s parting words, her eyes refocused on an upstairs window of the house.

  She gasped and dropped the key.

  Chance Wellesley dropped his opera glasses. The insufferable man was spying on her!

  He made it to the bottom of the spiral staircase a second before she burst through the kitchen into the saloon.

  “How dare you!”

  “Coffee?” he said, motioning toward the bar, where the bartender was pouring himself a cup. “I don’t mean to be rude, but you look like you could use it.”

  “You were watching me from that window.”

  There it was again, that trick of the light. She was pretty when she was mad, despite the ugly dress. Her eyes were gunmetal gray, he noticed for the first time, and flashed him a murderous look in response to his smile.

  “Explain yourself.”

  He shrugged. “I can’t. Guilty as charged.”

  “So you admit you were watching me?”

  “I do. Now, how about that coffee? I know I could use another cup.”

  She took stock of her surroundings, as if she’d just now realized she was standing in the saloon. It wasn’t much to see this time of the morning. Delilah and the girls were still asleep, and the bar didn’t usually open until ten, not until two on Sundays. Wild Bill had had standards, after all. For regulars like himself it was different, of course.

  “Miss Fitzpatrick?” The bartender held out a cup to her. “Could rustle you up some breakfast if you like.”

  “No, I, um…” She calmed herself down—for the bartender’s benefit, not his, he presumed. “Yes, a cup of coffee would be wonderful.” She walked up to the bar and he set the cup down in front of her. “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure. Cream?”

  “Yes, please. And sugar, if you have it.”

  “Comin’ right up.”

  Chance watched her as she fixed her coffee, doing the best she could to ignore him.

  “I don’t think we were properly introduced last night. You are…?”

  “James Parker, ma’am. But you can just call me Jim. We’re pretty informal around here.”

  “Jim, then.” She nodded, looking past him along the bar, which hadn’t been wiped down from last night, to the pile of dirty glasses in the sink. The floor was littered with cigar butts and sticky with spilled beer.

  “Oh, I, uh…” Jim cast her a sheepish look. “I meant to get this mess cleared up last night, but you know how it is.”

  She wasn’t listening to him. Chance followed her gaze to the portrait above the bar. Her pale cheeks flushed the most disarming shade of scarlet he’d ever seen.
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  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  She instantly averted her eyes. “Yes. No. I’m perfectly fine.”

  He hadn’t been up long, and while he was wearing trousers and boots, his shirt was only half buttoned. Her gaze drifted to the opening, lingering on his chest hair. He knew she’d come around. They always did.

  Their eyes met, and true to form she blushed hotter and turned her attention back to her coffee. He was beginning to enjoy this.

  “Don’t like that painting much, do you?”

  “No. No, I don’t.”

  “Well, it’s your place now. You could always take it down.”

  “Take it down?” Jim, who was hastily wiping the bar down, froze in midstroke.

  “That won’t be necessary. I told you. I’m selling the place as soon as possible.”

  “Selling it?” Jim had worked at the Flush since Wild Bill opened the place. He didn’t look happy about the prospect of losing his job.

  “Yes. In fact, I’m going into town this morning to see a lawyer.”

  “But, uh, Miss Fitzpatrick…” Jim ran a hand over his balding head, then toyed nervously with the ends of his moustache. “Your pa wouldn’t have wanted you to sell the place. Not right away, at least.”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask someone.” She drew herself up in what Chance was beginning to think of as her schoolteacher pose, and said, “How did my father die?”

  “You mean you don’t know?” Jim tossed him one of those you-tell-her looks.

  “He was shot,” Chance said. “Right here in this very room.”

  She sucked in a breath, and from the stunned look in her eyes he knew her surprise was real and not fabricated.

  “W-who did it?”

  “Nobody knows.” But he was going to find out, if it was the last thing he did. “It was a Saturday night. The saloon was packed. We heard the shot, and he just went down.”

  “Right here,” Jim said, nodding at the floor behind the bar.

  “You were here? Both of you?”

  “Sitting right over there, playing cards.” He cocked his head toward one of the tables.