Rocky Mountain Marriage

by Debra Lee Brown

  Truth dawned. “You…can’t read.”

  Susan shook her head. “Never went to school.”

  Dora didn’t know why it surprised her. Lots of people couldn’t read. That was precisely the reason she’d wanted to become a schoolteacher in the first place. Her mother had encouraged it because it was a respectable calling for a woman, and one that typically had nothing to do with men.

  Dora had had her own reasons for pursuing education as a career. Quite simply, she loved books, losing herself in a world of adventure and excitement. For as long as she could remember, she’d wanted to share that love with others.

  God knows her mother hadn’t shared it. Adventure and excitement were the devil’s work, according to Caroline Fitzpatrick. Dora grinned, reflecting on her surroundings. She was living a bit of that adventure and excitement now, here in the most notorious saloon in the county—a saloon she owned.

  “Mother would roll in her grave.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Oh, sorry.” She snapped the crisp pages of the letter in her hands. “Of course I’ll read it to you. And later, if you like, I’d be happy to teach you to read.”

  “You would?”

  “Of course.”

  Without warning, Susan threw her arms around Dora’s neck, practically knocking her off the chaise. She hugged the girl in return, a tiny flame of satisfaction curling inside her. This was the other reason she loved teaching. The joy it brought to others.

  Together they read the letter, Susan following the words on the page with her finger as Dora read aloud.

  “It’s from an orphanage in Denver,” Dora said.

  “I know.” Susan beamed her a smile more brilliant than the afternoon sun streaming through the lace-curtained windows of the parlor. “I have a son.”

  Chapter Eight

  He’d tried everything he could think of to get her to move to town, including becoming so obnoxious even he couldn’t stand it. Nothing seemed to rattle her.

  “I don’t see the point.” Chance slung a hip on the edge of Wild Bill’s walnut desk and twirled the watch fob the old man had given him two days before he was murdered.

  “The point is…” Dora looked up from the New England Primer from which she and Susan were reading. “Everyone should know how to read.” She nodded at the girl to continue.

  “Even whores?” Dora had already asked him once not to call Susan, or any of the girls, by that—how had she put it—derogatory term. He only did it to needle her, and he suspected she knew that, given the black look she gave him from behind the desk.

  “Yes,” she said crisply. “And gamblers. Swindlers and horse thieves, too.”

  He grinned. “I’m touched that you think so highly of me as to place my profession in the same category with swindlers and horse thieves.”

  “If the shoe fits, Mr. Wellesley…” She arched a pale blond brow at him, then went back to her teaching.

  “Ouch,” he said, and wandered across the room to the fireplace.

  “I can come back later, if you like, Miss Dora.” Uncomfortable with their bantering, Susan looked ready to make a break for it.

  “No, I think we should continue.” Dora’s gaze pinned his from across the room. “Despite the interruption. Read on.”

  Susan continued, stumbling over the letters Dora had taught her to recognize.

  Chance watched as Dora’s attention—and her gaze—strayed to the high, paneled walls of the study. She cocked her head, peering from one carved walnut panel to the next, as if she were looking for something that didn’t meet the eye head-on.

  The location of the money.

  He’d seen her questioning Gus and Rowdy yesterday afternoon, and had heard from Lily that she was interviewing the girls. Dora was searching for it, all right, and didn’t seem to care who knew. But he cared. He had to. If she wasn’t careful, she’d get her head blown off just like her father had.

  He toyed with Bill’s collection of Chinese porcelain on the mantel, and considered that if he’d been a better man than he really was, the kind of man he used to be, he’d make it his number one priority to see that didn’t happen.

  But he wasn’t that man, not anymore, and he had other priorities. One, in particular, that had nothing to do with Dora Fitzpatrick—at least not yet it didn’t. It wouldn’t, if he could figure out how to keep her from getting mixed up in things that would eventually get her killed.

  He’d tried almost everything in his bag of tricks, and nothing was working. Charm, intimidation, taunting, sincerity—she seemed immune to his entire repertoire. He looked up and caught her watching him.

  What’s it going to take, Dora, to get you to stop?

  She didn’t look away, and for a moment he thought again of their kiss. Once, a long time ago, she might have been the kind of woman he’d have gone for, despite her plain looks. She was smart and self-sufficient. She knew her own mind, and even if no one else agreed with her, she was tenacious enough not to back down if she thought she was right.

  He admired that about her.

  His father would have liked her. His mother and sister, too, God rest their souls.

  She didn’t have to teach Susan to read, but here she was, up early in her father’s study, doing exactly that. Despite everything—the risk to her reputation, the clash with her Christian values, and the plain hard work involved—she’d kept the saloon alive, had made it thrive. She’d done it for the staff and for the town. He knew that now. He felt it as he looked into her eyes.

  She reminded him a lot of Wild Bill—goodhearted and generous to a fault. She was that and more. Everything he, himself, wasn’t. All the more reason he needed to stay away from her.

  Why hadn’t she taken Gardner up on his offer? Why hadn’t she moved to town? She could have done both of those things, and still she could have looked for the money. But she hadn’t. She was still here, despite his and the banker’s best efforts to sway her view.

  He held her gaze, and she his. And then it hit him like a brick upside the head.

  She was here because of him, because he was here.

  “Lord,” he whispered, and broke her stare. He turned toward the fireplace, and in the mirror above the mantel he saw her watching him.

  Once, only days ago though it seemed like months, he would have used her naive interest in him to his advantage. In fact, he’d planned on it. But now everything was different. When he was near her he felt hot around the collar, as if his suit were suddenly too tight, too close to his skin.

  He didn’t feel in control anymore. On the contrary, he felt out of control, not himself at all. And his reasons for being here, knowing with certainty what his life would come down to in the end, made being out of control not an option.

  Tense, he dropped to a squat and grabbed a couple of logs, thinking he’d build a fire—not so much to warm the room, as it was a fine spring day out, but to give himself something to do so he wouldn’t think about it anymore.

  “Chance?”

  The sound of his name on her lips sent a rush of heat clear through him.

  “Are you all right?”

  He positioned the logs, then hunted for kindling. “Right as rain,” he said, giving her his stock answer.

  A heap of ash and blackened logs in the back of the fireplace crowded his new creation. He grabbed the whisk broom and brushed the heap forward. A crumpled-up piece of paper, singed at the edges, cartwheeled onto the hearth.

  He snatched it up, and a second before tossing it toward the wicker wastepaper basket by the desk, he recognized the fine ivory vellum. It was a sheet torn from Dora’s diary.

  “What you got there, Chance?” Susan asked.

  “Sheet of paper.” He uncrumpled it and smoothed it out against the mantel.

  “What is that?” Dora rose from her chair, frowning.

  “Are you going to read for us, Chance? Miss Dora can teach you, too.”

  He quickly perused the page, then shot them both a grin. “I know how to rea
d.”

  Dora came around the desk, alarm flashing in those steely gray eyes of hers. “Give me that.”

  “No.” He started to read aloud what she’d written, a long listing of neatly penned qualities on the left, under the name of one John Gardner, banker. “Trustworthy?” Chance shook his head. “I don’t know about that one, Dora.”

  “Susan.” She turned to the girl. “Please leave us.”

  “Well, sure, Miss Dora, but…”

  “Now!”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Chance laughed as Susan shot from the room like a frightened doe. His smile transformed into the grin he’d perfected on Dora’s behalf, for just such an occasion.

  “Chance Wellesley, of all the low, ill-mannered—”

  “Gentle?” He shot her a look. “I’ve got news for you, Dora. Any man of yours who’s gentle is in for a long, hard ride of it.”

  “Uncouth—” Her frown deepened. “What do you mean ‘man of mine’? That’s not what that list is about. It’s simply my way of—”

  “Lascivious?” He looked at the word again. “What the hell does that mean?” It was under his name, not Gardner’s, at the top of a significantly longer list of characteristics, all of them negative, scribbled in the right-hand margin of the page.

  “Lewd,” she said, and snatched the crumpled paper from his hand.

  He tried to grab it back, but she balled it in her fist and hid her hands behind her. A second later he had her pinned, backed against the mantel, his face inches from hers. Her nostrils flared, her eyes were silver daggers. Never in his life had he wanted to kiss a woman more than he did at that moment. His lips descended on hers.

  “Am I gonna have to toss a bucket of water on you two to keep you apart?”

  Chance jumped back at the same moment Dora let out a squeak.

  Delilah stood in the open doorway, her arms crossed over her ample bosom. Susan lurked behind her in the hall, her brown eyes wide as saucers.

  “No,” Dora said, quickly adjusting her dress and patting her hair, which had all but come undone. “I have the situation completely under control.”

  Delilah smirked. “Glad someone does, ’cause he sure don’t, do you, Chance?” She winked at him.

  Normally he would have grinned in response, but this time he didn’t think it was funny. Delilah was right. His good sense was going to hell in a handbasket. The problem was, he was enjoying the trip.

  A minute later Dora had the fire going and tossed the list onto the flames. “There,” she said. “That’s that.”

  “Damned right.” Chance straightened his vest and grabbed his hat from the desk where he’d left it when he’d come in. The forgotten reading primer lay on the floor. He picked it up and handed it to Dora. Their gazes locked, and for the hundredth time that day he told himself to back off.

  “You two had better watch yourselves,” Delilah said, eyeing them. “At least in front of the girls.” She gave Susan a scoot, and she disappeared down the hall. “Lord, do they love to gossip. Especially that Lily. Who knows what that banker’ll do when he gets wind of this.”

  Dora’s face blanched.

  “Don’t worry,” Chance said. “He’d never believe it. A gambler and a schoolmarm?”

  “Schoolteacher,” Dora said. “And yes, I completely agree with you. The idea is preposterous.”

  “It’s a doozy,” Delilah said, and shook her head at the two of them.

  For two straight days she’d managed to keep an eye on Chance, while at the same time avoiding any prolonged interactions with him. It hadn’t been easy. The man took pleasure in baiting her.

  She was certain, now, that he was deliberately trying to get rid of her. While she’d never actually seen him poking around the ranch or the saloon, snooping in places he had no business being, she was convinced he was here for one reason alone—to find what her father had left her.

  She recalled her listing of his character flaws; she could recite them by heart. Chance Wellesley might be a lot of things, but one thing he wasn’t was stupid. If he was here looking for the money, it had to be real.

  Chance’s canny persistence, the appearance of stray bank notes, a few rumors she’d heard in town, and her father’s penned innuendo all added up to one thing—a fortune hidden somewhere on the premises.

  The question was where?

  Drawing the heavy velvet draperies aside in the saloon, she peeked out the window at the progress Rowdy had made with a shovel in the front yard. The grassy area from the oak tree to the well was peppered with holes. On her instruction, he’d been digging. However, she hadn’t told him why he was digging. She suspected he thought she was crazy.

  Gus had been over the barn, the bunkhouse, the cabins and other outbuildings twice over, tapping the walls with a hammer, looking for loose boards, again on her instruction. What she’d really hoped he’d find was a secret panel. So far, he’d turned up nothing more than a long list of repairs that needed attention.

  Rowdy had been more successful. So far he’d found nearly a dozen coins, including several double eagles, likely dropped by customers who’d had more to drink than they could handle. It wasn’t the fortune she’d hoped for, but it was something.

  She’d been over her father’s study, his bedroom and the upstairs parlor a dozen times, and had turned up nothing more than dust bunnies.

  Dora sighed.

  “Still at it?”

  She turned at the sound of Chance’s voice.

  He leaned up against the bar and motioned to Jim for a cup of coffee.

  “Still at what?” She noted he was dressed more formally today than usual.

  “Cleaning.” His tone of voice implied he knew she was doing more than that.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You’re barking up the wrong tree, Dora.”

  The man had more catch phrases than suits of clothes, and he was a definite clotheshorse. She ignored him.

  It was Saturday morning, and shortly the first customers of the day would begin to arrive. Tom had just sat down at the piano across the room to practice a new piece she’d heard him working on yesterday. She hadn’t yet interviewed him, and thought now would be a good time.

  She sidestepped Chance. “Tom?”

  The piano player swiveled toward her on his stool. In her haste to get away from Chance, she tripped on the edge of the Persian carpet. A heartbeat later he was there, but she refused his help.

  “You okay, Miss Dora?” Tom rose from his stool.

  “Fine,” she said, rubbing her calf where she’d banged it against a chair. “Oh, shoot! I’ve run my stocking.” She lifted her petticoat higher to inspect the damage.

  “And a fine stocking it is, too.” Chance shot her a lusty look.

  While she’d grown immune to his vulgar taunting, knowing full well it was an act he put on to unnerve her, his mere mention of her stocking made her see red.

  “If you ever have a hankering for more midnight plundering of my undergarments, Mr. Wellesley, I suggest you satisfy your fetish elsewhere, unless you’d like to find out just how good I am with a derringer.”

  Chance gawked at her, thunderstruck.

  Good. She was glad he knew that she’d been aware of his invasion of her cabin that night. Perhaps he’d not think her so naive from now on.

  Tom’s eyes widened. Dora scowled at him, too. He swiveled back around to face his piano and instantly broke into a chorus of “Hangtown Ladies.” She was grateful, and used the diversion to get her temper under control.

  Another diversion presented itself, for which she was also grateful. Mr. Grimmer strolled into the saloon along with the marshal and a couple of local business owners. Chance, who’d recovered his composure before she’d recovered hers, was only too happy to oblige them in their quest to see who could lose the most money on this fine Saturday morning. Chance ushered them to his regular table, and cast her a curious look before sitting down.

  Dora turned her back on them all. “To
m?”

  “Yes, Miss Dora?” He continued his playing at a softer volume.

  “Can you tell me what you know about my father’s business dealings?” She opened her diary and plucked her fountain pen out of her pocket.

  “Sure,” he said. “But I don’t know much. Just that he owed nearly everybody in town.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that.”

  Tom looked up from the piano. “Some of them bills got paid, of course.”

  “Really?” That was hard to believe given the mountain of debt she’d inherited along with the saloon. “How?”

  “Chance paid ’em. From his winnings, I guess. Did it all the time, only no one’s supposed to know about it.”

  Now it was Dora’s turn to look thunderstruck. “Why on earth would he have done that?”

  Tom wasn’t listening. She followed his gaze across the room to where Delilah was shooing Daisy and Susan toward the bar. Jim had just poured a couple of seasoned miners shots of rye. Tom stopped playing the piano when one of them put his arm around Susan.

  “Tom?”

  His face flooded with color, the vein at his temple pulsed, as he watched the miner paw her. Susan smiled at the man and made small talk, but it was clear to Dora—and to Tom, she realized—that Susan would rather be anywhere else in the world than in the grip of a man who was about to pay her to have relations with him.

  Delilah cast Tom a disapproving look. He visibly shook off his anger and began to play again. This time the tune was somber.

  “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?” Dora was guessing.

  Tom didn’t answer. He kept his eyes on the sheet music positioned in front of him, though it was plain to see that wasn’t the tune he was playing.

  “Have you told her?”

  His bunched shoulders relaxed a little, and he shot her a quick glance. “No.”

  “You should, you know.”

  “Won’t matter.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  He drew a breath and moved into a love song, a lament Dora recognized and loved. “She won’t have me. She won’t have no one.”

  “Why not?”