Rocky Mountain Marriage

by Debra Lee Brown

  “I reckon ’cause she thinks she’s spoiled now. You know—” he glanced over at Susan who was leading her customer up the spiral staircase to one of the bedrooms above “—from working here.”

  Dora felt like the lowest of hypocrites. Here she was reaping profit from an enterprise she openly scorned, and that had likely ruined the life of one of the sweetest girls she’d ever met.

  “She told you that?”

  “Didn’t have to. I just know.”

  He continued to play while Dora reflected on a situation she was now determined to put right. She hadn’t spoken to anyone about the conversation she’d had with Susan in the upstairs parlor. While she very well might be betraying a confidence, intuition—which she’d begun to listen to more and more—told her she was making the right move.

  “Do you know about Susan’s child?”

  Tom stopped his playing and looked at her. “I do, but she don’t know I do.”

  “And?”

  He drew himself up out of his melancholy slouch and said, “I think we ought to go get him, that’s what I think.”

  “You mean take him from the orphanage in Denver.”

  “Damned straight. Her kin forced her to give him up after he was born, so I heard. Then they turned her out. She showed up here eight months ago, and Delilah and your pa took her in.”

  Susan hadn’t revealed these details to her. Dora let the new information sink in. “I think you should tell her you know,” she said at last. “I think it would ease her mind.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes.”

  Tom broke into a lively melody, his fingers flying over the keys, light as a whisper. Chance looked quizzically in their direction, and Dora promptly ignored him. Still, the notion that he’d helped with her father’s debts and had taken it upon himself to insure William Fitzpatrick had had a Christian burial plagued her.

  Who are you?

  “Might ease his mind, too,” Tom said, tipping his chin toward Chance. “Then again, might scare the bejesus out of him.”

  “What?” Dora said.

  “You tellin’ Chance you’re sweet on him.”

  Gardner had dredged up one lame reason after another to ride out to the Flush nearly every day this week. A couple of times he’d even bought a round of drinks, though he’d come in the late mornings when business was slow, and he, himself, only drank sarsaparilla.

  Chance had had just about of enough of him.

  “Gardner,” he said, when the banker sidled up to the bar for the fifth day running.

  “Hello, Wellesley. Buy you a drink?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  Dora was just coming in from the kitchen with a tray of clean glassware for Jim. The local girls she’d hired to wash dishes were in the upstairs parlor reading with Susan and Columbine. The place was turning into a damned school despite the fact it was still a saloon.

  “Miss Fitzpatrick! Dora.” Gardner removed his hat. He tossed her a smile that turned Chance’s stomach.

  Over the past week he’d made some quiet inquiries into the banker’s background, but had come up with next to nothing. That, coupled with Gardner’s dogged interest in Dora, put him on his guard. He continued to tell himself—every damned hour if he had to—that his suspicions about Gardner had nothing to do with the irritation he felt each time the banker captured Dora’s attention.

  She still hadn’t taken him up on his offer of a new loan, and she still hadn’t moved to town to be closer to him. All the same, when Gardner had showed up yesterday out of the blue to take her to church, Dora had changed her plans so she could ride with him. Not that her interest in Gardner ate at him. It didn’t, goddamn it.

  He downed the beer Gardner bought him in one gulp. “Hit me again, Jim.” He turned to the banker. “This one’s on me. How about something stronger than that toilet water you’re drinking?”

  Dora shot him a nasty look.

  “Oh, no,” Gardner said. “I don’t drink hard liquor.”

  “Not even beer?” Even the street urchins Dora was so intent on teaching drank beer.

  “Not typically. It, uh, clouds my judgment.”

  “Well, that’s a new one.”

  Dora cleared her throat in that huffy schoolmarm style that usually prefaced a lecture of some kind. “I think that’s admirable. Think what a better world we’d live in if others—” she arched a blond brow in his direction “—followed your example, John.”

  Chance snorted. “My judgment’s just fine, thank you very much.”

  She made an impertinent little sound in the back of her throat that he found annoying and fetching all at once. He noticed she was dressed for hard labor, in that same old ugly gray dress.

  Maybe she was going to help Gus with his hammering or Rowdy with his digging. Half the damned ranch was covered in holes. Just yesterday Silas had stepped in one of them and nearly busted an ankle. Chance had ended up in the dirt.

  “I was thinking, Dora, that perhaps you’d like to join me in town for supper one night.”

  Chance turned his attention back to Gardner. He was openly courting her, despite the fact that she hadn’t really encouraged it. She hadn’t discouraged it, either, he reminded himself.

  “Another beer, Chance?” Jim’s hand was poised to pull him another draft.

  “Go ahead, Mr. Wellesley,” Dora said. “It couldn’t possibly make your judgment any worse than it already is.”

  The look they exchanged was not lost on Gardner. The banker knew he and Dora were at odds half the time, and in heat the other half, thanks to Lily’s blabbing all over town what she’d seen in the hallway that night.

  “Set me up,” he said to Jim.

  “About our supper…” Gardner looked expectantly at Dora.

  “I’d like that,” she said, flashing her eyes in Chance’s direction to gauge his reaction. He didn’t give her the satisfaction of seeing him scowl. “But why don’t you come here?”

  “To the saloon?”

  “To the ranch,” she said. “Jim fries a melt-in-your-mouth chicken, and you haven’t yet tried my scalloped potatoes.”

  “You can cook?” Chance hadn’t seen her at work in the kitchen except for cleaning.

  “Of course I can cook. It’s just that I haven’t wanted to intrude on Jim’s domain.”

  The bartender brightened right up. “I’d be pleased as punch for you to try out those potatoes, Miss Dora.”

  Pleased as punch? What the hell kind of place was this turning into?

  “And I’d be happy to sample them,” Gardner said. “May I bring some wine?”

  “You mean you don’t drink sarsaparilla with supper, too?” Chance couldn’t help himself.

  Dora glared at him. “Wine would be lovely,” she said to Gardner. “Thursday. Seven o’clock.”

  “I’ll be here.”

  Chance watched as she gave the banker a little smile, then floated back to the kitchen and closed the door.

  “You’re one smooth operator, aren’t you, Gardner?”

  Wisely, Jim left the two of them alone, moving down the bar to serve other customers.

  “What’s your problem with me, Wellesley? You haven’t liked me from the get-go.”

  “No problem. I just can’t figure your motive.”

  “What motive?” Gardner met his gaze, didn’t back off an inch.

  “You and her.” He cocked his head toward the kitchen.

  “I would have thought it was perfectly obvious. I care about her.”

  Gardner’s bald statement caught him off guard.

  “She’s a fine woman, though I don’t expect someone like you would know the difference.” Gardner glanced at Lily, who’d taken the opportunity, now that Dora was gone, to slide her arm around Chance, making him feel uncomfortable under the circumstances.

  Chance brushed her off.

  “She’s not a woman to be trifled with.” Gardner drew himself up, and Chance did the same. They were nearly the same height, dead on t
he same age, he’d discovered from his brief investigation.

  His hand moved instinctively to his gun belt. He noticed the banker didn’t wear any weapons. None that were visible, at any rate. This was a side of John Gardner he hadn’t seen before. He decided to test it.

  “It’s money, isn’t it?”

  Gardner laughed.

  “That’s what you’re after. Admit it.” He’d never really considered the banker on his list of murder suspects. Gardner wasn’t a man who easily blended in with the crowd at the Royal Flush. If he’d been there the night Wild Bill was shot, someone would have seen him. That didn’t mean he couldn’t have hired an anonymous gun to do his dirty work for him.

  That didn’t mean he wasn’t Wild Bill’s partner.

  He locked eyes with Gardner.

  “To begin with…” The banker’s voice was chillingly calm. “I don’t believe the saloon or the ranch will ever amount to anything, and I don’t like it that Dora does. It’s a wild-assed fantasy keeping her from making the right decisions where business is concerned.”

  “Is it?” He couldn’t tell if Gardner really believed that or if he was just feeding him a load of bull. He’d also never heard the banker swear before. The words had rolled off his lips naturally, as if he always talked like that. He had a new appreciation for Gardner—and new suspicions.

  “Stay away from her,” Gardner said.

  “Is that a threat?” His hand closed over the walnut grips of his Colt.

  Gardner didn’t breathe, didn’t move a muscle. He also didn’t back down. Chance had to give him credit.

  “Just how well did you know Bill?”

  “Dora’s father?” The banker smiled, a slow smile that spread like a disease across his unblemished face. “Well enough.”

  Chapter Nine

  “No!” Dora crossed her arms over her chest and looked pointedly at Delilah.

  “Yes.” Delilah positioned her in front of the oval mirror flanking the dressing table, while Columbine and Rose held the velvet gown up in front of her.

  “See? It’s beautiful.”

  “It’s scandalous,” Dora said.

  “The violet lights up your eyes. Don’t it, girls?”

  The others, all except Lily, enthusiastically agreed. An hour ago they’d sent Susan out to the cabin to fetch Dora upstairs to Delilah’s room. Had she known the purpose of the summons, she’d never have come.

  “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” She’d changed out of her simple gray dress into a high-necked black frock she reserved for special occasions.

  “It’s fine,” Delilah said, “if you’re in mourning.” She grimaced at the sturdy woolen fabric.

  “But you ain’t,” Susan said. “You’re entertainin’ a gentleman. You want to look pretty, don’t you?”

  Dora looked at her reflection in the mirror and frowned.

  “Not that you ain’t pretty,” Susan said quickly. “You just need a little…”

  “Help.” Daisy moved up behind her and, gazing into the mirror, framed Dora’s face in her hands. “Just a little.”

  “And we’d best be quick about it,” Susan said. “He’ll be here in less than an hour!”

  The he was John Gardner, and while Dora should have been excited about their evening together, she now wished she’d agreed to dine with him in town, as he’d originally proposed. Dining here, under the scrutiny of her employees—not to mention Chance—wasn’t as appealing as it had seemed when she’d first suggested it, despite Jim’s fabulous fried chicken, which she could already smell cooking downstairs.

  Delilah started in on the buttons of Dora’s black frock. “The first thing we need to do is to get you out of this old thing.”

  “But—”

  “No arguments, now. Trust me this once.” Delilah’s eyes held a maternal affection so genuine, Dora couldn’t help but comply.

  “All right,” she said. “I’m willing to try it on, but I’m not guaranteeing I’ll wear it.”

  Seconds later she was stripped of the black frock. Lily plucked it off the bed as if it were a smelly dish-cloth and dropped it ceremoniously onto the floor by the door.

  “I knew it!” Delilah said. “I knew you had a fine figure underneath those frumpy clothes.”

  Dora felt suddenly self-conscious, standing there in front of them all in her undergarments.

  “Someone else knows it, too,” Susan said.

  “Mr. Gardner, you mean.” Dora blushed. She’d caught the banker looking at her the other day.

  “I was talkin’ about Chance.” Susan shot her a mischievous grin. Lily snorted.

  Before she could reply, Delilah spun her around so Columbine and Rose could lower the two-piece velvet gown over her head. There must have been two dozen tiny hooks up the back. As Delilah began to fasten them, Susan stepped in and matter-of-factly scrunched Dora’s chemise down into the top of her corset, exposing the tops of her breasts.

  Dora gasped at the result. “It’s far too small. Look at the bodice!”

  “Scanty is a better word for what it is,” Rose said, “but that’s the point, isn’t it?”

  “It’s perfect.” Delilah turned her toward the mirror and, together, they looked at Dora’s reflection.

  “I can’t wear this.”

  “You can and you will. It’s lovely.”

  The gown itself was lovely, a rich violet velvet, that set off her creamy skin and gray eyes. It had thin straps rather than sleeves, and was beaded across the bodice in a swirling pattern that disappeared into the nipped-in waist. The style was more old-fashioned than the fancy gowns the girls wore in the evenings in the saloon, but that was one of the things Dora liked about it.

  “It’s yours?” she asked Delilah.

  The older woman nodded. “I can’t wear it now, of course. Piled on too many pounds over the years. But it’s always been special to me.”

  “A man bought it for her,” Iris said, a knowing look in her eyes.

  “Only she won’t say who,” Rose added.

  Dora wondered if the man had been her father.

  “You’ll need gloves,” Delilah said, her eyes shining with emotion.

  “Here.” Susan and Daisy helped her into a pair of long black evening gloves.

  Delilah opened the carved walnut box on top of her dressing table. “And some jewelry.”

  “Oh, no. I don’t typically wear jewelry.”

  “How about this?” Delilah chose a simple black satin ribbon trimmed in lace. “It’s just enough to draw some interest.” She fastened it around Dora’s neck before she could protest.

  “I’ve got news for you,” Lily said. “It ain’t the ribbon he’ll be lookin’ at.” She flashed her eyes at Dora’s ample expanse of exposed bosom.

  Dora refused to be embarrassed. She did look good, she decided, staring at her reflection in the mirror—perhaps for the first time in her life—and she intended to enjoy it.

  “Now for some lip rouge.” Columbine was already opening various jars on Delilah’s dressing table.

  “Absolutely not,” Dora said. “This is where I draw the line. I will not wear paint on my face.”

  “She’s right.” Delilah told Columbine to put the tops back on the jars. “Decent women don’t wear lip rouge. You all know that.”

  The implication, of course, was that Dora was decent while the rest of them were not. She felt a stab of pity for Susan, who lowered her eyes and brushed a hand across her lips. The others, Lily in particular, seemed unaffected by Delilah’s proclamation.

  Dora didn’t know how to feel. Three weeks ago if someone had told her she’d be fawned over like Cinderella going to the ball by half a dozen ladies of the night in an upstairs bedroom of a saloon—and that she’d enjoy it—she wouldn’t have believed them.

  Her whole world had changed since then, she reminded herself. Having dinner with a gentleman who was interested in her was the least scandalous of some of the things she’d recently done. She ought to let herself en
joy it.

  “Now for the hair.” Susan narrowed her eyes in thought as three of them descended on her at once with pins and hairbrushes.

  “What’s wrong with my hair?”

  “Nothing,” Delilah said, “if you’d fix it right.”

  “Nobody except schoolmarms and preachers’ wives do their hair like this anymore.” With one flick of her wrist, Susan released the tight chignon that was Dora’s everyday hairstyle.

  “I am a schoolmarm, I mean teacher. Remember?”

  “Not tonight you ain’t,” Susan said. “You’re a woman.”

  “And he’s a man,” Rose added.

  They all giggled.

  “Not much of one if you ask me.” Lily flopped onto Delilah’s bed and affected a bored expression.

  “You hush now,” Delilah said. “John Gardner’s not the only man who’ll be seeing her tonight.”

  Dora looked at her, but Delilah wouldn’t meet her gaze. Dora had no intention of appearing in the saloon, if that’s what Delilah had meant, though she would have to brave the roomful of men for the few seconds it would take her to descend the spiral staircase.

  “If we only had some pretty combs…” Susan continued to work on Dora’s hair.

  “Oh,” she said, recalling the lovely tortoiseshell comb her father had left her in his safety deposit box. She’d meant to wear it tonight, but had been called upstairs before she’d had a chance to fix her hair.

  Waving the girls away, she retrieved her black frock from the floor where Lily had dropped it, and fished the tortoiseshell comb out of the pocket.

  “Here,” she said, dropping it into Delilah’s hand. “Will this do?”

  Delilah’s breath caught. “Where’d you get this?”

  She hesitated before answering. Delilah looked as if she’d seen a ghost.

  “Looks familiar,” Susan said.

  “My, um, father left it for me in his safety deposit box at the bank. It must have been dear to him.” She looked at Delilah, whose blue eyes shimmered in the lamp light. “Do you know to whom it belonged?”

  Delilah fingered the comb as if it were a rare treasure. She clearly knew something about it. Dora would remember to ask her about it later. The comb looked strangely familiar to her, too—it had ever since she’d first laid eyes on it.