He supposed that to a youngster from back east, he cut a pretty dashing figure with his buckskin shirt visible under his heavy coat, the high-topped boots, the Colt and the Green River, and the broad-brimmed hat that was now tipped back on his thick, shoulder-length brown hair. Cole didn't feel very dashing, though. He was just who he was and didn't see anything particularly special about it, unlike Jimmy Hickok, who had always figured that folks would be telling tales about him one of these days.
"Busy night," Cole said as he nodded to the desk clerk. "Any trouble with all the extra guests?" He had come in here to warm up a little, but as long as he was here, he might as well at least check on things.
The clerk shook his head. "People seem to be getting along pretty well, even though it's cramped. Most of the folks here in the lobby will be sitting up all night because all the rooms are already full. I guess it's better than sitting in that drafty depot, though."
Cole nodded. He was about to tell the clerk to send somebody to fetch him if things got out of hand during the night, but before he could say anything, a woman's voice spoke from his right. "Good evening, Marshal. What brings you here?"
He looked over and saw a very attractive, dark-haired woman in her thirties standing at the foot of the stairs. Cole wished he had glanced that way sooner. It would have been a treat to the eyes to watch Simone McKay coming down those stairs. She was the loveliest woman in Wind River and maybe, as far as Cole was concerned, in the whole territory.
Her late husband Andrew McKay, along with his partner William Durand—also late but in his case unlamented—had founded the town and what was now known as the Wind River Land Development Company. Simone owned the company now, along with this hotel, the newspaper, the largest general store in the settlement, and a good chunk of everything else in these parts. She was also the one who in her grief over her husband's murder had prevailed on Cole to pin on the marshal's badge and track down Andrew McKay's killer.
"I was making my rounds," Cole said to her, "and I decided to stop in here and make sure everything was all right."
Simone smiled. "Business is booming. I'd say everything is fine, Marshal."
She was wearing a dark blue dress with an open, heavy coat on over it. The coat had a fur-lined hood. Cole noted her garb and commented, "It looks like you're planning to go out. I don't know if that's a good idea. The weather's getting mighty bad out there."
"It's just snowing a little, isn't it?"
"No, ma'am, it's snowing a lot. And the wind's blowing hard, too. If I was you, I'd just spend the night here in the hotel." Cole happened to know she had a suite permanently reserved for her upstairs, in addition to the big house on the outskirts of town.
Simone smiled slightly. "That would be fine, if not for the fact that a family of ten is staying in my suite tonight. I'm afraid there wouldn't be any room for me, too. No, I'll just go on home."
Cole knew from experience just how stubborn she could be, so instead of arguing with her, he did the next best thing. "If you're bound and determined to go, I'll walk you," he volunteered. "If you got turned around in that blizzard, you might not ever get home. You might freeze to death fifty feet from your front door."
"Oh, now, surely it's not that bad."
"I reckon you haven't taken a look outside lately."
Determinedly, Simone marched across the lobby, buttoning up her coat as she went. When she reached the door and opened it, she flinched and stepped back like she had been struck in the face. That was exactly what had happened, Cole knew; the swirling wind had slapped her with a handful of snow. He could see some of the flakes clinging daintily to her eyelashes as she turned to face him again.
"It appears that you were correct about the severity of the weather, Marshal," she said dryly. "However, I'd still like to spend the night in my own house and in my own bed. I believe I'll take you up on that offer to accompany me."
He would have accompanied her right to that bed she had mentioned, Cole couldn't help but think.
His mouth tightened. He had no right to allow such thoughts in his head. Simone McKay was a decent, respectable woman. But she had been a widow for quite a few months now, and she was still relatively young. She had to be feeling some stirrings again, despite her mourning.
Of course, it was ridiculous to think that a lady like her would ever be interested in somebody who had spent most of his life with barely a couple of coins to rub together and a lot of the time not even that much . . .
"Well, Marshal, are we going to leave or not?"
Her question broke into his thoughts, and he tugged up the collar of his coat even more. "Sure. You'd best put that hood up, though. It's going to get mighty cold out there."
Simone pulled the hood over her dark, lustrous hair. The ring of fur around her face made her more lovely than ever, Cole thought. Warmth spread through him that had nothing to do with the pair of pot-bellied stoves in the corners of the lobby.
Then he and Simone stepped out into the storm, and it was hard to think about any kind of warmth for a while. The blizzard took care of that.
"Listen to the wind," Delia Hatfield said. "If it blows much harder, I think I'm going to go insane."
"There were snowstorms when we lived in Cincinnati, too, you know," her husband Michael pointed out.
"It's not the same and you know it."
Michael watched her as she stood at the front window and pulled back the curtain a little. She was trying to look outside, but there was nothing to see. The temperature had plummeted since the storm had blown in during the late afternoon, and the condensation on the inside of the window had frozen into a thin sheet of ice on the glass. It was that cold.
Delia sighed, a sound Michael knew all too well. He studied the stiff lines of his wife's back beneath the cap of thick red hair.
In the time since they had come to Wind River so that Michael could become the editor of the Sentinel, there had been baking heat, blinding dust storms, cattle stampedes, marauding outlaws, the threat of Indian trouble, and now this fierce blizzard. It had been a challenging existence to say the least, the young newspaperman thought as he ran his fingers through his sandy hair and leaned back on the sofa where he was sitting.
"You might as well come over here and sit down," he said. "Staring out isn't going to change the weather."
"I know that. I'm just worried. What's going to happen if it doesn't stop snowing?"
"It'll stop," Michael assured her. "I talked to Marshal Tyler this afternoon before the storm got here, and to Billy Casebolt, too. They've both spent a lot of time in Wyoming, and they tell me we probably won't get more than a few feet of snow."
"A few feet?" Delia repeated. "Michael, we'll be stranded here!"
"Maybe for a day or two. But it won't be so bad. We have plenty of food on hand, and if I needed to, I'm sure I could get through the snow. We can just sit here and enjoy the children and each other." He patted the cushion of the sofa beside him and repeated, "Speaking of that, why don't you come over here and sit down?"
Delia hesitated, frowning at him for a moment, then she shook her head and laughed softly. "You can find the good in anything, can't you, Michael?"
"Better than looking for the bad."
"I suppose so," she said as she walked over to the sofa and settled herself close beside him. "I'm glad Gretchen and Lincoln are asleep. They might be frightened if they heard the storm."
"Lincoln wouldn't know what it was, and Gretchen would just regard it as another adventure. I'm sure once the snow stops, she'll want to get out and play in it right away. She'll want to build a snowman. And she'll probably pester us until we let her do it."
Delia laughed again. "I imagine you're right." She moved even closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder as he slipped an arm around her.
Michael smiled in contentment. He had a beautiful wife, two fine children—three-year-old Gretchen and the baby Lincoln, born several months earlier—a job he enjoyed and was good at, and most i
mportantly on a night like this, he was inside where it was nice and warm. His arm tightened around Delia.
"Michael," she said, her voice infused with a huskiness he knew and loved. Her head lifted toward his, and her lips parted a little as her eyes closed.
He kissed her, savoring the warm sweetness of her lips. She put a hand on the back of his neck and held it there. Michael reached down and touched her breasts, felt her sigh in satisfaction against his mouth as he caressed her.
What better way to spend a cold, snowy night? Michael couldn't imagine any.
At first he thought the wailing was just the wind outside, but gradually the realization penetrated his brain that the sound was coming from inside the house. Specifically, from the bedroom he and Delia shared, the room where Lincoln was supposed to be sleeping in his cradle right now.
Obviously, Lincoln wasn't sleeping anymore.
"That's the baby," Delia said as she pulled away from him.
Michael nodded. "I know. Maybe he'll go back to sleep."
"No, he won't," Delia said with a shake of her head. "I know that cry. He's hungry, the poor little thing."
Michael sat back and sighed. There was no point in trying to distract Delia now. She was already on her feet and hurrying toward the bedroom. Michael supposed he couldn't blame his son. Babies were pretty limited in their reactions, after all. They woke up, they were hungry, they cried . . . simple as that.
And they didn’t give a hang for the problems of their fathers, not at this age, anyway.
The crying stopped, and Michael knew that Delia had picked up the baby. Through the open door, he heard Lincoln give a happy little gurgle.
That could have been him gurgling happily right about now, Michael thought. But there was still time. The night was going to be a long one.
Outside, the snow kept falling, and the wind still blew.
* * *
Simone was breathless as she opened the front door of her house and hurried inside. Cole Tyler was right behind her. He shut the door quickly, and she laughed as she turned to face him.
"You have snow in your hair," she said.
He took his hat off and shook the mane of brown hair, sending melting snowflakes cascading to the floor of the foyer. "We're going to make a mess, dripping here on this floor."
"I don't care. Take your coat off, Cole." She was already slipping her own coat off and putting it away in a closet. "You were right. I've never seen a snowstorm like this one. If you hadn't come along to guide me, I might not have been able to even find Sweetwater Street, let alone the house."
"Well, I'm glad I stopped in at the hotel when I did." He hung his coat on a brass rack and added his hat to it as well.
"Would you like some coffee?"
"Sounds mighty good," he said honestly.
"Have a seat in the parlor. I'll see if there's a pot on the stove. Mrs. Ryerson usually leaves one simmering, especially in cold weather like this."
Cole hoped that Simone's Irish cook and housekeeper had run true to form tonight. After the walk to the McKay mansion on the edge of town, he was chilled to the bone.
The parlor itself was fairly warm, however, because there was a fire banked in the fireplace. He stood in front of it and held his hands out toward the warmth.
Simone came in a few minutes later, carrying a tray that held the coffeepot and a pair of cups. She set it down on a low, exquisitely carved table and poured the coffee, then handed one of the cups to Cole. "Thank you," he said. He sipped the hot, strong brew.
"I was almost sure you took your coffee black," Simone said.
"Black and strong enough to get up and walk off if you don't keep an eye on it," he replied with a chuckle. "This is good."
"Why don't we sit down?" Simone moved over to a small divan and settled herself on its brocaded cushions.
Cole glanced around, looking for a chair. There were several in the room—but he realized that Simone was looking at him expectantly, as if she figured he would sit on the divan beside her. His fingers tightened a little on the handle of the coffee cup. He told himself that if she wanted him to sit by her, he shouldn't disappoint her.
Gingerly, he lowered himself onto the divan, wondering if this was the first time denim pants had touched the fancy piece of furniture. He couldn't help but feel somewhat out of place here in this expensively furnished room. The carpet was thick and soft under his boots and there were oil paintings on the walls. The McKays had probably spent enough money on this one room to have built a dozen sod-busters' cabins. But that had been their right, Cole reminded himself; it was their money.
Or at least it had been. It was Simone s money now, since Andrew was gone. Cole wondered how much she still missed her late husband. As it had turned out, Andrew McKay hadn't been the most honorable gent in the world, but he and Simone had been married for quite a while when he died. She had to have been hit hard by the loss.
She didn't seem to be dwelling on that tonight. She asked brightly, "How long do you think this storm will last?"
"Hard to say. It might blow over in a few hours, or it could still be snowing a week from now."
"Goodness, I hope not. The entire town would be covered up!"
"Chances are it won't last that long."
"Will you able to get back to your boarding-house tonight?"
"Oh, sure. I've walked many a mile through snow. It won't bother me."
She lifted her cup and looked at him over the rim. "I was just going to say that you could spend the night here if you think it would be too difficult to get back to the Paines'. There's plenty of room."
The suggestion took Cole by surprise. He thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. "Folks knew we left the hotel together. It wouldn't look very good if I spent the night."
"I'm not worried about my reputation, Marshal. After all, I own a great deal of this town."
Cole took a deep breath and said, "Yes, ma'am, you do." He added to himself, But you don't own me.
He was being a fool, he thought. Earlier, he had entertained notions of something romantic occurring between him and Simone, and now that she was working around to that very subject, he was starting to shy away. But something about this situation didn't feel right to him, and he sensed that if he pursued it, they might both wind up regretting what happened. He didn't want that.
But how the hell was he going to get out of this house gracefully?
The sudden pounding on the front door might as well have been the answer to a prayer.
Cole sat up straight and put his cup on the tray. Simone said, "Who could that be on a night like this?"
"Best let me answer it," Cole said as he stood up. The urgent knocking had the sound of trouble to it.
He went out of the parlor into the foyer, holding his right hand close to the butt of his Colt as he reached for the doorknob with his other hand. As he opened the door, the wind threatened to snatch the knob from his grasp. A couple of bundled-up figures stood there, holding their hats on. Cole recognized both of them.
"Get in here out of the wind," he told them, stepping back so that the men could enter. When they were in the foyer, he pushed the door shut with a grunt of effort.
The taller of the two newcomers took off his broad-brimmed gray hat and shook snow from it. "Whoo-eee!" he said. "It's really comin' down out there!"
"Tell me something I don't know, Billy," Cole said to his middle-aged deputy. "What are you and the doc doing out in the storm?"
The second man, who wore a bowler hat and a heavy overcoat, replied, "I've been summoned out of town for a medical emergency, Marshal, and I prevailed on Deputy Casebolt to accompany me. We didn't want to leave until you had been notified, however."
Dr. Judson Kent still had an English accent, although he had been in the United States for several years. A man in his forties, Kent was about the same height as Cole and had a neatly trimmed dark beard shot through with gray. He was a highly competent physician who had moved his practice here to the
frontier settlement of Wind River at the invitation of Andrew McKay and William Durand. Cole figured Kent had his own reasons for making that decision, and he had never pried into them.
Kent's companion, Deputy Billy Casebolt, was a sharp contrast to the urbane medico. Casebolt had spent his entire life in the West and was a leathery, seasoned veteran of Indian wars, scrapes with outlaws, and all the attendant dangers of frontier life. He was tall and lean, and his lantern jaw was heavily stubbled with silver. Most of the time, he was talkative to the point of garrulousness, but at the moment the cold weather seemed to have taken some of that out of him.
"What sort of medical emergency?" Cole asked with a frown. "This is no night to be out."
"I'm aware of that," replied Kent, "but my oath as a doctor requires me to make every effort I can to assist the sick. One of the Flaherty children has been taken ill; the lad's father came to my office a short while ago asking that I return with him to their farm. He's waiting now at the hotel to lead us back there."
"The doc figured he'd better not start out in this sort of weather by himself, though," Casebolt added, "so he came by the marshal's office and got me. I said I'd go with him, but I wanted you to know where we was headed, Marshal. We asked around town until that clerk at the hotel told us you'd brought Miz McKay home. Don't you worry, I'll take good care of the doc."
Simone appeared in the doorway of the parlor. She said, "Judson? You can't be serious about going out on a night like this!"
"I'm afraid that I am, Simone," Kent told her. "I have little choice in the matter. The Flaherty boy has a raging fever, according to his father, and he was too sick to be moved. The man actually demonstrated excellent common sense in coming to fetch me."
Cole reached for his coat. "If you're bound and determined to go, I'll come with you."
"Ain't no need for that, Marshal," Casebolt insisted. "Me an' the doc'll be fine. The Flaherty place ain't much more'n two miles out of town."
"Two miles in a storm like this is a long way," Cole pointed out.
"Shoot, I've traveled in worse weather than this. My horse is sure-footed, and Flaherty's got himself a good mule. Doc's buggy horse is plenty strong, too. We'll make it just fine."
Wolf Shadow (Wind River Book 3) Page 6