Rocky Mountain Marriage

by Debra Lee Brown

  “Beats me,” Delilah said abruptly, and tossed the comb to Susan. “Pretty, though. It’ll look good on you.”

  Susan and Rose fashioned her long blond hair into a charming upsweep, leaving a few wispy tendrils, which they curled with a hot iron, to frame her face. The comb was the perfect accent. Delilah was right. It did look good on her. In fact, when the girls stepped away and allowed her to see herself in the full-length mirror, Dora was stunned.

  “I hardly recognize myself.”

  “That’s a good thing,” Lily said. Delilah thumped her.

  “All right you girls, downstairs with you.” Delilah opened the door and ushered them all out. “It’s Thursday night, and rumor has it some old boys from the Springs’ll be up this way to try their luck at cards. I expect you to console them when they lose.”

  Dora followed her to the door, thanking the girls for all their help. At last she turned to Delilah. “I can’t thank you enough.” On impulse Dora hugged her.

  “Oh, it’s nothin’. I’m glad you finally saw things my way.”

  “I don’t know why I was so reluctant.”

  “Probably ’cause you ain’t never spread your wings before. A girl like you—smart and pretty with her whole life ahead of her—it’s time for you to fly.” Delilah winked at her. “Even if just for tonight.”

  She hadn’t spread her wings, she realized, until the day she’d made the decision to follow her heart instead of her head, and had come to Last Call to learn about her father.

  “Hell’s bells, Miss Dora!” Tom stood in the hallway. His eyes bugged out like a Chinese pug’s.

  Chance was just coming out of his room across the hall. Dora sucked in a breath and steeled herself for his appraisal. He stopped dead when he saw her. As his gaze washed over her, gooseflesh rose on the bare skin of her upper arms.

  “Hell’s bells, indeed,” he said.

  She expected him to make some lewd comment, or to toss her one of his devilish smiles. He did neither. He simply stared at her, his eyes smoldering, as she walked purposefully to the staircase, head held high, and descended into the saloon.

  He told himself it was just the dress, or the way they’d fixed her hair. Maybe it was the way she carried herself, knowing he couldn’t take his eyes off her. In the end he decided it was just her. It didn’t matter what she wore, that old gray sackcloth or dressed to the nines, she’d gotten under his skin.

  Gardner arrived promptly at seven. Dora was waiting for him. She made a brief appearance in the saloon to welcome him, turning the heads of all the men in the room, then led him to the dining room at the back of the house, where Jim had already laid out their supper.

  It was to be a private supper, Delilah reminded him as he strolled too casually into the kitchen under the pretense of snagging himself one of Jim’s fried chicken legs. Glancing down the hall he saw her, a vision in violet, her gloved hands resting on the frosted glass panels of the sliding dining room doors. She was about to close them. Gardner stood behind her, glaring at him.

  Chance pinned her with his gaze and nodded a greeting. She froze. It would be harder, he told himself, if she cared for him, even a little. That was the last thing he wanted or needed. All the same, deep down, he craved her acceptance and her affection like a drug.

  A little over a year ago, his rage and his pain exhausted, his vengeance unfulfilled, he’d wandered into an opium den in Fairplay and didn’t leave for nine weeks. He knew what addiction was, and he was addicted now—to her. Only this was worse. If he didn’t get her out of his system, she was the one who’d be hurt. Looking into her eyes, he knew it as surely as he knew the sun would rise tomorrow.

  Gardner slipped a hand boldly around her waist and grinned at him. It had been a long time since Chance had allowed himself to feel the kind of anger which had driven him to the unalterable course he was now set on. He felt that anger now as he turned his attention to Gardner.

  His dilemma was that he couldn’t trust his instincts anymore, not where Dora was concerned. The twisting in his gut that intensified when Gardner laid hands on her only made things worse. He could no longer separate his irrational feelings for her from his very rational suspicions about Gardner’s relationship with her father.

  Dora flinched, ever so slightly, at Gardner’s touch.

  That was the only encouragement Chance needed. “If you need me,” he said to her, “I’ll be right out here.”

  Her gray eyes widened, in surprise or indignation, he wasn’t sure which. She recovered herself and visibly shook him off, turning her head toward Gardner, smiling at the banker as if he were everything in this world she could possibly want.

  Chance knew acting when he saw it. After all, he was the master.

  Flashing him a smug look, Gardner reached past her and closed the sliding doors. Chance stood there, watching their silhouettes behind the frosted glass panels, until Delilah pulled him away.

  John Gardner ate three servings of her scalloped potatoes. He was so stuffed from the meal, he had to decline even a tiny slice of Jim’s preserved peach pie. Dora indulged, just to have something to distract her from the banker’s intense staring.

  He’d told her eight times over the course of the evening how beautiful she looked, and while his attention wasn’t unwelcome, it made her nervous in a way that the attention of the only other man who’d ever really noticed her—namely Chance—did not.

  If you need me, I’ll be right out here.

  “Brandy?” Jim said as he cleared away the last of the dishes and silver.

  “Not for me.” Dora raised a gloved hand to her mouth, covering a feigned yawn.

  “None for me, either,” John said. “It’s late. I know you get up early, Miss Dora, and I should be getting back to town.”

  She smiled at him, relieved. Their evening together had been the longest three hours of her life. Why, she couldn’t pinpoint, except that her feelings, which should have followed the sensible conclusion that John Gardner was a worthy suitor, did not match his.

  “It’s been a lovely evening,” he said as he rose and came around the table to take her hand.

  Jim made a quick exit.

  “I enjoyed it, too.”

  “Perhaps we can do it again sometime—soon.”

  Dora didn’t answer.

  “May I escort you to church on Sunday?”

  It would have been impolite to have said no, so she agreed. He opened the sliding doors into the hallway and was surprised to see Jim already standing there with his hat and coat. Dora was surprised, too.

  “Shall I walk you out?” she asked.

  “It’s raining.” Chance stood at the opposite end of the hallway near the open door leading to the back of the stage. The sounds of Tom’s piano and Delilah’s mezzo-soprano drifted from the saloon.

  “I’ll be fine.” She turned to take John’s arm.

  “No, no, you’ll catch cold.” John’s gaze was riveted to Chance. “Stay here. I can see myself out.”

  Jim handed him his coat and his hat, as if to punctuate the point. As soon as the banker was gone, Chance returned to his card game in the saloon. Dora watched him for a moment from behind the spiral staircase, until Lily planted herself in his lap and his arm slid neatly around her waist.

  “Nice evening?” Delilah said, coming up behind her and spooking her half to death.

  “Oh! Um, fine.”

  Delilah had that motherly, let’s-have-a-talk look in her eyes, but Dora wasn’t up to it. Not tonight. After thanking Delilah and Jim for their part in ensuring Mr. Gardner had had a pleasant time, she retreated to her cabin.

  So many things suddenly weighed heavy on her mind, not the least of which were her own confused feelings about John Gardner, about Chance and her own future. She slid the tortoiseshell comb out of her hair and turned it over in her hands, studying it.

  Her father might have left her any number of things in his safety deposit box—gold, stocks, even another letter describing in detail where he�
�d hidden the money that seemed to be on everyone’s mind but that no one openly talked about—but all he’d left for her was the comb and a tintype of himself. They were clues, she was sure of it. They had to be!

  She smiled, thinking it ironic that she’d always liked a good mystery, but now that one presented itself in real life, in her life, she was at a loss to solve it.

  Again John had pressed her to move to town and accept his help. Again she’d put him off. Leaving the ranch now would all but guarantee she’d never discover her father’s true legacy to her. Looking at the tintype, at the warmth in his eyes and the calmness of his expression, she had the strangest feeling that perhaps his legacy wasn’t money at all.

  Carefully she rewrapped the comb in the sheet of newsprint and tucked it along with the tintype under her stockings. As she changed out of her borrowed evening gown into a long cotton nightdress, she pondered the other mystery on her mind.

  Chance.

  In the past three weeks she’d learned no more about his history than she’d already discovered her first day in town with him. He was an enigma. On the surface he was a charmer, always jovial and stylishly uncouth. But beneath the facade, in those rare moments of clarity, she perceived two warring factions within him, one intent on keeping secret some terrible truth, the other desperate to reveal all.

  She slid between the cool sheets of her narrow bed and sighed. Perhaps she was making too much of him, reading into the situation something that only existed in her mind. Maybe he really was just a scoundrel, one with a soft spot for her father.

  She lay awake into the wee hours of the morning thinking about him. When at last she gave in to her insomnia—and her craving for another piece of Jim’s fried chicken—she got up and put on her dressing gown, donned a pair of slippers and stole across the yard to the back porch.

  The kitchen was dark. Inside she could still hear Tom’s soft playing in the saloon, but the rest of the house was quiet. Tom was a night owl and often stayed up late practicing new music. She decided not to disturb him.

  She was just about to light the kerosene lamp on the kitchen table, when she heard someone out in the hall. The last thing she wanted was to run into Chance. She flattened herself against the wall near the stove and listened. Light footfalls and the occasional squeak of a board sounded down the corridor.

  The footfalls stopped, and Dora held her breath. There would be no repeat of their kiss in the dark. She’d be a fool to let something like that happen between them again. She edged toward the back door, determined to make her escape before he caught her.

  Another sound stopped her in her tracks, a dull scraping along the floor. Intrigued, she crept back to the doorway leading to the hall and peeked out. Someone was there, a man, but it wasn’t Chance. She could tell because the shadowy shape wasn’t nearly as tall as the gambler’s six feet.

  She stood silent for a moment, allowing her eyes to adjust to the dim light.

  The man knelt, then grunted as he picked something up from the floor. Dora realized it was a box. What on earth…? She was about to step out into the corridor and make herself known, when he raised his fist.

  “Oh!” She muffled her cry with the back of her hand.

  He paused, then raised his fist higher and landed one firm beat on the walnut paneling of the hall, midway between the dining room and her father’s study. To Dora’s utter astonishment, a portion of the wall gave way, opening inward on silent hinges. The man disappeared into the darkness beyond, and Dora was left standing there, alone, her heart pounding.

  Of course!

  Since the day she’d decided to continue operating the saloon and had begun to fix the place up, the length of the hallway had always bothered her. It seemed too long—much longer than the combined dimensions of each of the three rooms off of it. In fact, she’d even measured it and had made a note of the discrepancy in her diary. That was the night Chance had kissed her. How could she forget?

  On impulse she crept down the corridor and stared into the black void. It was a secret passageway leading down. Did she dare descend? She heard rustling below. Her breath caught in her throat as soft light flayed open the darkness of what appeared to be a secret basement. The man had lit a lamp.

  She reminded herself that this was her house now, and her basement, secret or otherwise. Still, she took care to descend the steps as quietly as possible, though it hardly mattered as the man was making an awful racket.

  Tom’s playing continued, drifting down the hallway from the saloon. She didn’t know whether he could hear the noise or not, or whether he’d be able to help her if she got herself into trouble.

  Who was down there, and what in God’s name was he doing?

  She reached the bottom, a blind turn, and stepped onto soft dirt. The air was cool and musty, like a wine cellar she’d once been invited to see at a fancy house in Pueblo when she was a girl.

  The racket was louder now. She inched around the blind turn and stopped dead. The room wasn’t nearly as large as she’d expected. Crammed with boxes and old furniture, it seemed at first blush nothing more than a basement storeroom.

  The man had his back to her. In the lamp light she immediately recognized him. His bald head sheened with perspiration, the muscles of his bare forearms bunched as he lifted the box.

  “Jim.”

  He jumped at the sound of her voice and promptly dropped the box. He jumped again when he turned and saw her standing there in the shadows.

  “Miss Dora!”

  She stepped into the room, her narrowed gaze moving over every darkened corner and inch of wall, each trunk and box and stick of dated furniture. She arched a brow when her eyes settled on the nude portrait of her father’s favorite whore, leaning against a stack of dusty boxes.

  “What are you doing?” She nodded at the box he’d dropped when she’d startled him. A cold apprehension curled inside her.

  The bartender shrugged. “Just putting away some old bottles. Empties.” He knelt and opened the lid of the box. “Delilah likes me to save her some for the girls’ potions and such.”

  She remembered Delilah’s dressing table, crammed with both store-bought and homemade toiletries and colognes.

  “Oh.” His answer seemed reasonable.

  “You’re up awfully late, Miss Dora. Or early, depending on how you look at it.”

  “Yes.” Something about the storeroom seemed off to her, but she couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was. “Why haven’t I seen this before?”

  “The cellar?” Again he shrugged. “Don’t rightly know. It ain’t a secret. I don’t come down here much. There’s rats.”

  A shiver shot up her spine as she whirled, checking the space around her.

  “Tom and me kill ’em when we find ’em. Your pa used to borrow the marshal’s cat—well, until the marshal’s wife got wind of it and put a stop to it. It’s some special variety, a Maine Coon, I think she calls it. Won some prizes in the Springs.”

  He was rambling, and she had the strangest feeling he was hiding something, not that Jim had ever given her any reason to doubt he was anything other than a loyal employee.

  Again she peered into the darkened corners of the basement, then looked up to examine the low ceiling.

  “I know what you’re thinking, Miss Dora.”

  She frowned, distracted, and turned her attention back to Jim.

  “You’re thinking this is where it is.”

  “Where what is?”

  He shot her a candid look. “The money.”

  Chapter Ten

  “That’s right. A high-stakes poker game.” Chance set his coffee cup down on the card table, kicked back in his favorite chair and waited for Dora’s reaction.

  “When?”

  “A week from tomorrow. Saturday night.”

  He’d decided on it last night while she and Gardner were together behind closed doors, and after a couple of old boys from the Springs who’d made the trip to Last Call just to play cards with hi
m cleaned him out.

  He was tired of waiting for Wild Bill’s partner to surface. He’d gather up all the rotten apples in one barrel in one night, leak the rumor about Bill’s secret fortune, and see if he could get the most rotten of them to show himself.

  “But why?”

  “Why not?” he said. “The house’s cut of the profits will be sizable. I assume you could use the money.”

  It would mean she could postpone taking Gardner up on his offer of renegotiating the mortgage the bank held on the ranch. While he wanted her out of the way, he was convinced Gardner was up to something besides just being neighborly, and he didn’t like it.

  “Sizable if you win, you mean.”

  He grinned at her. “Where’s your faith in me?”

  “I thank the Lord daily that, up until now, I haven’t had to put my faith in you for anything.”

  He winced, clutching at his heart as if he’d just been shot.

  “All the same, I like the idea,” she said. “It’s good for business. I’ll ask Jim to lay in more supplies.” She fished her diary out of her pocket, pulled her fountain pen from behind her ear and began scribbling.

  He smiled to himself.

  She paused. “What are you up to?”

  “Nothing.” He tipped his chair back precariously far. “Just trying to make a living, like everyone else.”

  He could tell by her expression she didn’t entirely believe him.

  “There’s something you’re hiding.”

  “There’s a lot I’m hiding. Come on upstairs with me and I’ll show it to you.”

  As expected, she snapped the diary shut and marched off, but not before he recognized a flash of pain in her eyes, wedged there between embarrassment and irritation.

  “Damn it.” He’d hurt her. “Dora, wait.” He followed her out through the kitchen, down the back steps and into the yard.

  She kept walking.

  He knew it was more than just his base comment that had upset her. He’d made plenty of those over the past few weeks, by design, and to her credit she hadn’t let him scare her off. No, this was different. He was off balance, too. He’d lost over two hundred dollars at cards last night—a first—while Dora had kept company with that banker.