Rocky Mountain Marriage

by Debra Lee Brown

  “You heard me.”

  She’d heard him, but his words hadn’t registered. A sick feeling coiled inside her. “No.”

  “Do it.”

  Lee chuckled. “Well, well, well. Looks as if Wellesley’s not your knight in shining armor after all.”

  Dora shook her head in disbelief as she eased around the carved statue and backed slowly toward the door. “No. I—I won’t.”

  Upstairs in his bedroom, when Chance had looked her in the eyes and told there was no money, she’d known then he was lying. She’d known it, and yet she’d been certain he had compelling reasons to do so. Honorable reasons which, once she discovered them, would explain his erratic behavior.

  Now she didn’t know what to think. “You’ve been lying to me all along.”

  “Yes.”

  She sucked in a breath, astounded by his candor. “About everything?”

  “That’s right.”

  You think I don’t want you. You’re wrong.

  Her insides were twisted so tight she couldn’t breathe. “Why?”

  He grinned at her, and in that moment her whole world changed.

  “Why do you think?” His voice was a whisper.

  Everything she’d come to believe about his true character was once again in question. “The money?” She shook her head, unable to comprehend her own stupidity.

  “Love hurts, don’t it,” Lee said, taking it all in.

  “I’ll ask you one more time.” Chance’s expression darkened. He took a step toward her, his guns still trained on the Hargus boys. “Put the diary down and go.”

  Lee grinned at him, then slowly lowered his hands. “How ’bout we split it?”

  Dora’s legs felt like stone. The air was suddenly too thick, the lingering stench of whiskey and cigar smoke permeating her senses. “How could you?”

  Little more than an hour ago he’d held her in his arms, kissed her with an all-consuming passion she couldn’t have been wrong about. Together they’d burned, and in a moment of clarity and trust she’d declared her feelings for him. Never in her life would she forget the look in his eyes when she’d said the words.

  Never would she forget how he looked at her now, coldly, as if she meant nothing to him.

  “The diary, Dora.” Chance took another step.

  There was no one, now, she could count on, no one to help. If she cried out, Jim would come to her aid, then Tom, Delilah and the girls. But that wasn’t the kind of help she needed. It wasn’t her safety she was concerned with, but her sanity. What she needed was to get away, to think, to tell someone who would listen and understand.

  John.

  “Just hand it to me.” Lee nodded at the diary.

  She stepped back, and he went for her.

  Chance fired.

  He’d never killed a man, and wouldn’t have hesitated if he’d been sure he was aiming at the men who, eighteen months ago, had blazed a trail of deception, fraud and murder across three states.

  As it was, the crystal chandelier exploded above Lee Hargus’s head, along with a row of bottles behind Dickie’s. A spray of shattered glass rained down on them. The cloying scent of peach brandy infused the air.

  Dora was already out the door by the time Chance had Lee bent backward over the bar, a pistol jammed against his temple. He flashed his eyes at Dickie, who was about to go for his gun. “Don’t even think about it.”

  “What in tarnation…?” Jim appeared in his union suit on the balcony above them, an old flintlock rifle in hand. Not fully awake, he blinked his eyes at them.

  Delilah materialized next. She brandished a weapon Chance had more faith in, a nice little pepperbox revolver he knew Wild Bill had given her before he was killed.

  The thundering herd was next to arrive: Columbine, Iris, Daisy and Rose. Tom and Susan brought up the rear. The instant the piano player saw the Hargus boys, he yanked Susan away from the balcony, shoved her into the upstairs parlor and locked her in. A moment later he trained his army revolver on Dickie Hargus’s head.

  “Want me to get the marshal?” Jim started down the spiral stairs, Tom and Delilah in his wake. The girls huddled together on the balcony, their eyes wide as saucers.

  “No.” Chance didn’t want any interference from Max. He’d do this his way.

  The Hargus boys exchanged a look, then Lee grinned. Chance thought it was a pretty gutsy thing to do, given the fact that one of his Colts was pressed firmly against Hargus’s head.

  Delilah lit a lamp, then the wall sconces flanking the bar. Something on the polished pine surface caught her attention, the comb Chance had seen Dora wearing the night she’d dined with John Gardner.

  Chance peered at the wrinkled newsprint cradling the decoration. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  Delilah’s voice brought him back to the moment. “Where’s Dora?”

  “Gone.” Chance worked to keep his mind off her and the newsprint, and on the task at hand. Later, if there was a later, he’d remember the pain in Dora’s eyes when he’d asked her to give him the diary.

  At the time, he’d known it was the one thing that would drive her away from him to safety. What he hadn’t counted on was that she’d defy him and take the diary with her. As long as she had it, she’d be a target for the Hargus boys, or anyone else who wanted to get their hands on Wild Bill’s money and who thought his daughter knew where it was.

  “Gone where?”

  As if on cue, hoofbeats sounded outside. He could tell from their cadence the horse was Silas. Good. At least Dora would ride safely. For some damned reason the gelding liked her.

  Delilah gasped as a shadowed shape rode past the window, then turned into the fog on the trail to town.

  “Let her go,” Chance said. “It’s better she’s not here for this.”

  “For…what exactly?” Delilah asked.

  Jim approached Dickie, who hadn’t moved a muscle since the first gunshot. “Damn, Chance. That was my best peach brandy.” He surveyed the wreckage on the glass shelves above Dickie’s head. “Why’d you have to go and do that?”

  Chance shot him a look.

  “Sorry,” Jim said, then frowned at the mess. “It’ll take me till opening to get the place cleaned up.”

  Tom edged closer, his army revolver aimed squarely at Dickie’s head. “At least he didn’t spoil Bill’s painting. That’s something, ain’t it?”

  Chance stared at the portrait above the bar. Dickie looked over his shoulder, following his gaze.

  “Don’t you move,” Tom said to him.

  “What exactly’s goin’ on?” Delilah moved toward Chance, eyeing Lee and Dickie with suspicion. “Why’d you boys come back?”

  “And how’d they get in?” Jim frowned at the saloon’s entrance. “I locked that front door myself.”

  “If you’d be so kind as to let me up,” Lee said, “perhaps we could discuss this like gentlemen.”

  Chance thought about it, then stepped back, redoubling his grip on both guns. “All right, you two. Start talking.”

  Lee winced as he uncurled his back into an upright position. He spent a moment straightening his tie and smoothing his striped silk vest, as if he were getting ready to go out on the town. “I’ve already told you,” he said.

  “Yeah, the money. But what I want to know is how you knew about it.”

  “Just like everyone else, I suspect. Rumors fly fast around these parts.”

  “You knew before you got here, before you set foot out of Arkansas. Admit it.”

  Lee tossed him a look so innocent, Chance wanted to pull the trigger right then and there and get it over with.

  “Wild Bill had a partner.” Chance forced himself to calm down, to think with his head for a change and not his emotions. He had to be sure. He had to be dead sure. Once he was, he’d do the thing he’d burned to do from the second he cut his father’s body down from that tree. “That partner was you.”

  For a moment no one breathed.

  “You knew Bill was in d
ebt. You set him up with counterfeit currency, forced him into it, then reaped a profit off the top.”

  Neither brother so much as blinked.

  “Later you found out he was holding out on you, squirreling away real money you figured belonged to you.”

  “You saying I killed him?”

  “You or him.” Chance gave Dickie a hard look.

  Delilah sucked in a breath. Tom and Jim inched closer, their guns raised. The girls on the balcony began whispering. Chance was a heartbeat away from killing both of them.

  “How?” Jim said, breaking his concentration. “How could they have killed Bill? They wasn’t even here.”

  “He’s right,” Tom said. “We’d have known if these two was anywhere within fifty miles of the Flush. Don’t get too many Southerners up here in the high country.”

  Lee held Chance’s gaze. “You’re wrong about us, Wellesley. But even if you weren’t, what do you care? Who made you Fitzpatrick’s almighty avenger?”

  “Bill was a good man,” Delilah said, then pocketed her pepperbox revolver.

  “Or maybe this ain’t about Fitzpatrick at all.” Lee smiled at him. “Maybe you got something else eatin’ at you.”

  It took every shred of control Chance could muster to stop himself from pistol-whipping Lee Hargus senseless.

  “Put ’em away, Chance.” Jim nodded at the twin Colts, then stood his flintlock up behind the bar. “These two may not be innocents, but they can’t have murdered Bill.”

  “Who did, then?” Tom still had his army revolver trained on Dickie.

  “Maybe we’ll never know.” Delilah placed a hand on Chance’s shoulder. It was then he realized his own hands were shaking. “What I do know is there’s a girl out there ridin’ your horse. You’d best go get her, Chance, and bring her home.”

  Slowly, not taking his eyes off the brothers, Chance holstered his guns.

  “There now. Ain’t that better?” Lee grabbed his hat off the floor where it had fallen when Chance overpowered him.

  Chance stood for a moment, gazing at the portrait above the bar, considering his options.

  “I’ve been thinkin’….”

  He turned at the sound of Susan’s voice. The doe-eyed girl moved down the staircase in her dressing gown. The other girls followed.

  “How the devil did you get out?” Tom grabbed her at the bottom of the stairs and pulled her off to the side.

  Susan produced a key. “Found it over the door-jamb. But as I was sayin’, I’ve been thinkin’ about this partner of Bill’s, this counterfeiter. It would have to be someone with lots of money, right?”

  “Not necessarily,” Delilah said. “It could be anyone.”

  “So you believe the rumors.” Chance studied her, and it was the first time since he’d known her that Delilah looked away.

  “Makes sense, though,” Lee said, “for it to be someone with access to money. Now, who do y’all know who’s got piles and piles of it, right here in town in that fancy vault of his?”

  “That banker,” Tom said.

  Jim’s eyes bugged. “Chance, that’s where Dora’s likely gone!”

  He forced himself to take a breath. He’d known when Dora rode off on Silas that’s where she’d go for help. To Gardner. If he hadn’t been so fixated on the Hargus brothers, he’d have stopped her. Now he didn’t know what to do.

  Access to money wasn’t the issue. Access to counterfeit money was. In all his months in Last Call, Chance had never been able to tie John Gardner to any kind of counterfeiting scheme—and he’d tried, even harder since Dora had arrived at the Royal Flush and Gardner began courting her.

  He stared into Dickie Hargus’s eyes, then turned his attention back to Lee. The Southerner’s smile dripped like honey on a hot day. Something was off about these two, and he meant to get to the bottom of it. All the same, Susan’s innocent speculation ate away at him. First things first.

  He plucked the tortoiseshell comb and the newsprint off the bar and stuffed them into his pocket, then grabbed one of Rowdy’s oiled slickers off a hook beside the stairs.

  “Goin’ somewhere?” Lee said.

  “Yeah. To saddle a horse.” He shot Tom and Jim a look. “Keep an eye on these two while I’m gone.”

  The last thing he heard as he stepped into the fog was Lee Hargus’s soft laughter floating from the saloon.

  If it hadn’t been for Silas’s excellent sense of direction, she’d have gotten lost in the predawn mist blanketing the trail to town. The Platte River was high this time of year, glutted with spring runoff, and crossing it in the dark under cover of fog had been no picnic.

  As the gelding turned onto Last Call’s main street and broke into a lively trot, Dora offered up a silent prayer for her safe arrival. It appeared that no one had followed her, which she thought not only strange, but downright suspicious.

  She tethered Silas to the hitching post in front of the bank. The fog was less dense here, away from the river. She peered up at the shrouded windows of the second floor where John Gardner lived and drew a calming breath.

  She should have listened to him in the first place and moved to town. If she had, things would never have gone as far as they had with Chance. She wouldn’t have lost her heart as well as her head.

  Why hadn’t he followed her?

  If Chance was indeed after her father’s money, surely he would have subdued the Hargus brothers, then followed her to town to get the diary. While Lee Hargus had just been guessing, Chance knew for a fact she’d recorded in the red leather-bound journal all her speculations and every shred of evidence regarding her father’s money.

  Why hadn’t he come for the diary?

  “Dora?”

  The disembodied voice startled her. Silas snorted, then pounded the earth with a hoof, tossing his head high.

  Squinting through the mist, she looked up and saw a friendly face. At least she thought it was a friendly face. The nightcap he wore completely covered his head.

  “John?” She hadn’t even heard him open the window.

  “What are you doing here? What’s happened?”

  “I—”

  “Wait. I’ll be right down.” He closed the window, and she breathed in relief.

  John was a good man, she reminded herself, and he cared about her. He would take her in and help her think things through. Together they could sort through the facts in a rational manner. If her father had conspired with a counterfeiter, or at a minimum had been duped by one, John would know what to do. She was prepared to tell him everything.

  She climbed onto the boardwalk in front of the bank and waited for him to open the door. Her diary was safe and sound in her pocket. In it was recorded the exact location of the money. She knew if her father had really dealt counterfeit bank notes to customers in exchange for real money, the fortune he’d amassed had never belonged to him and didn’t belong to her.

  A light went on inside the bank. A moment later Dora saw a shape approach the frosted glass panels of the front doors. She heard the brief clinking of a key, then John appeared.

  “Come inside! You’ll catch your death.” He unlocked the double iron grating that during the bank’s regular business hours was swung open out of the way. “Here. Take my hand.”

  “I’m fine. Really.”

  He drew her inside and locked both the iron grating and the double doors behind them.

  “Come and sit down. In my office there’s a sofa.”

  She remembered it from her first visit to the bank nearly four weeks ago. There was also a bottle of brandy on a silver tray on his desk that he kept for customers. She could use a little right now to stave off the chill that had followed her inside.

  Together they sat on the sofa. He took her hand and pressed it gently between his. “Are you all right? Did Wellesley hurt you?”

  “No. I—I’m fine. Truly.”

  “That’s his horse outside, isn’t it?” His eyes were sharp with concern.

  The situation she now fo
und herself in was far from amusing, yet she couldn’t help the smile pulling at her mouth. She’d never seen the banker in quite this informal a state, and in the wee hours of the morning, too.

  He was wearing a starched white nightshirt and matching cap, elegant mules on his long, pale feet. He’d tossed a light blanket over his shoulders, for modesty’s sake she supposed. In his haste to get downstairs, he likely hadn’t had time to retrieve a dressing gown.

  “You’re in shock. What has he done to you?”

  She quickly recovered her composure. “Nothing. He’s done nothing. It’s just that—”

  What could she tell him? That she’d fallen in love with a gambler, a rogue and a thief? That she’d lain with him on his bed and allowed him to kiss and fondle her? That she’d kissed and fondled him back? That if Chance hadn’t stopped her, she’d have given herself to him?

  Oh, yes, that would go over well with a man like John Gardner, wouldn’t it?

  “What is it, Dora?” he said, and continued to stroke her hand.

  Should she tell him she’d found out the hard way she’d been a fool? That Chance didn’t care for her at all, that what he wanted all along was her father’s money? That he’d shielded her from the Hargus brothers not because he loved her, but because he wanted the money for himself?

  Did she really believe that?

  Despite all the evidence, in her heart she didn’t believe it—which was more proof she was beyond reason. She could no longer trust herself to be objective, which was precisely why she was here.

  “After you left,” she said, “after we’d all gone to bed, the Hargus brothers returned to the ranch.”

  John’s face paled. He inspected her for damage.

  “No, I’m fine. Really. They didn’t hurt me. Chance—”

  “Chance what?”

  “He…he stopped them.”

  John ground his teeth. “I guess I owe him an apology.”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary.” He’d agree with her once he knew the rest of what she had to tell him.

  “Where are they?”

  “The Hargus brothers? Back at the saloon with Chance.” She drew a breath, then let the rest of it spill out. “They…he…wanted my diary.” She fished it out of her pocket, then hesitated. If she were to ask John for help, she at least owed him the truth. About everything. She sucked in a breath, then looked him in the eyes. “I think I’d like a drink please.”