Because he suspected it might already have.
****
Days passed, each one of them a memory Eliza would cherish forever.
A letter came from Alvira to inform Joaquin she wasn’t coming back. Her daughter was expecting another baby and needed help. Eliza was glad. It gave her a purpose, cooking and serving meals at the cantina. She rarely ventured outside, but word quickly spread around the town that she had not after all left on the stage coach with the widow Redwood. When men came in to eat, she felt them staring, and she saw condemnation, sometimes pity, reflected in their eyes. The one time she went out to the well to fetch water, a mother with a toddler crossed the road to avoid her.
She didn’t care. She’d done what she had to do.
Often strangers passed through Lone Gulch, stopping at The Watering Hole. They didn’t know that she’d killed her father, or that she’d become a fallen woman. Those men treated her with courtesy, teasing her and flattering her with compliments, eager to win a smile from a pretty girl.
She might be living in sin, but at least hunger didn’t claw in her belly all the time. And she no longer suffered beatings, or had to worry about yet another swindle that would ruin the lives of innocent people. Little by little, her fear of people eased, and she began to enjoy the admiring glances and the friendly banter of the cowboys.
She came up with the idea of erecting a tarp high up outside, and the carpenter sold them a cheap set a rough pine stools and two tables. In the morning and afternoon, between meal times, people would stop by and enjoy a coffee, or a glass of lemonade beneath the shady canopy. Even a few women occasionally sat down—ranch wives shopping at the mercantile or passing by on their way to see their men at the range.
Twice, the roundup teams sent a wrangler to buy all the cookies she could bake.
At night, Eliza slept on the bedroll spread out on the floor, curled up against Joaquin’s side. In truth, she slept very little. Most of the night they enjoyed each other’s bodies, learning to give and receive pleasure.
As love grew in her heart, worry weighed her down. How would Joaquin feel when she had to start at the Mockingbird Saloon? Would he accept sharing her with other men? Would he let her visit, if not as his woman, at least as a friend?
“We need to talk about next week,” she told him, one night when time was running out.
“What about next week?” he smoothed his hand down the curve of her hip, trailing kisses along her neck.
“I need to start at the saloon.”
“What?” He levered up to one elbow. His brows knotted in an angry frown. “You don’t think you are…?” He pulled away and sat upright, draping his arms over one folded knee. “I thought you understood you wouldn’t go back. You’re my woman now.”
“I have to.” Eliza thought she’d conquered her fear, but it flooded back, crashing through her like an ocean wave. “I made a contract with Madame Jolie.”
“Contract?” He stared at her, baffled. “What kind of contract?”
“I had debts. She paid them off, and I have to work at the saloon.” Eliza turned away, seeking courage in the familiar clean-scrubbed interior of the cantina. Her home. The first real home she’d ever had. “My father…” She faltered and started again. “Remember what I said once? That I told you a pack of lies about how my father died?”
Joaquin’s nod was cautious.
“My father was a swindler. He married the widow Redwood thinking she had money. When it turned out she only had debts, he flew into a rage. If I hadn’t hit him with the poker, he would have strangled her.” Eliza’s shoulders slumped. “After my father died, I had nothing. He’d run up a debt at the mercantile. We’d broken into the house we claimed we were renting. The owner found out and sent me a rental bill. And despite everything, I wanted a headstone for my father’s grave. All those things had to be paid for.”
“They were your father’s debts. You could have walked away.”
“He’d married two other women, women with money.” Her voice trembled. “Soon after the wedding, they developed stomach cramps and died. I think he poisoned them, but at the time I was too young to suspect anything.” She turned to Joaquin and regarded him with pleading eyes. “I paid the debts to keep everything quiet. I didn’t want people to know that my father was a murderer, and that until now I’d never done anything to stop him.”
“How much do you owe?” he asked.
She swallowed. “Just over three hundred dollars.”
“Dios Mio.” His mouth fell open. That’s almost a year’s pay.”
“My father thought the widow had money, so he spent freely while he was courting her.” Eliza bit her lip. “I don’t want to ask you…but if you have…”
Joaquin shook his head. “You should have told me.”
“I’m sorry,” she said miserably, his anger slicing at the confidence she’d managed to build.
Instantly, his expression softened. He pulled her into his arms. “I didn’t mean it that way.” He lowered his chin and kissed her hair. “I did have some savings, but I bought the widow Redwood’s house. I wanted you to have a proper home. It was going to be a surprise. I took over the mortgage and paid back what she owed at the mercantile. If I had known, I wouldn’t have done it, and we would have the money now.”
“Can’t you cancel the sale?” she asked in a fragile hope.
“I’ve signed the contract and sent it to the lawyer. It’s too late. And I won’t find anyone else to buy the house. That’s why it was so cheap. People are leaving Lone Gulch.”
“Will you hate me after other men have touched me?”
“They won’t,” he said fiercely. His arms tightened around her. “No one will touch you as long as I live.”
“Then what?” she asked. “What can we do?”
“I’ll think of something.” He cupped her face in his palm. “Go to sleep. Don’t worry.”
But as Eliza lay down on the bedroll, dark clouds of despair gathered in her mind. It was almost as if even from his grave, her father was reaching out to destroy her.
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Chapter Nine
“I have a solution,” Joaquin told Eliza in the morning before they got up.
He’d kept awake all night, holding her, watching her. Inside him, the knowledge had hardened that she was the purpose he’d lacked in life. She was the balm that healed his wounds. She was the future that erased the losses of his past.
Eliza came before everything else.
“The painting.” He motioned with his head toward the altar, unwilling to release her from the circle of his arms. “It’s very valuable. I can sell it.”
Eliza shifted against him. “But it’s your heritage. The only thing you have left.”
“It’s only a picture.” He spoke quickly, in a hurry to share his plan and start on the road. “I need to go to San Francisco to find the right kind of buyer. It’s nearly a thousand miles each way. It would be easier to catch the railroad from Los Angeles for the rest of the way, but I have no money for a ticket, unless I sell the horse and that’s too risky, leaves us with no means of escape. I’ll have to ride. I’ll be back in a month.”
“A month!” She stared at him with frightened eyes.
“Yes.” He dropped a small reassuring kiss at the end of her nose. “We’ll close the cantina and you can hide inside, just like you did before. There should be enough food for a month, if you’re careful.”
“I don’t know what Madame Jolie will say if I tell her to wait another month. Nora wants to leave. The madam needs another girl to take her place.”
Joaquin tightened his arms around Eliza. All night, he’d tried to solve the puzzle, but it had defeated him. “I don’t know much about Madame Jolie,” he said. “All I know that she’s not what she pretends to be. Why did she bring you back to me? I think she is playing some cruel game with us that only she understands.” With a sigh, Joaquin rested his forehead against Eliza’s. “We’ll have to ask her
to wait another month. If she refuses, we’ll have to leave.”
He hated the look of fear that clouded her face, but he forced himself to speak bluntly. “We can get a horse and saddle for you from Rhett Bentley in exchange for the cantina. I used to earn my living as a gambler. I can do it again. It will be a hard life, riding from town to town. You’ll have to sleep in noisy saloons, sometimes in stables, or out in the cold. Gamblers get into arguments with losers. I could be killed, and then you’ll be alone again, in exactly the same position as before. You’ll have to find a man to protect you, or become a whore, but it will be in a strange town where you don’t know anyone. You’ll end up wishing that you were back at Lone Gulch, working for Madame Jolie.”
Eliza tipped her head back. Tears glinted in her eyes as she looked up at him. “We’ll speak to Madame Jolie first. If she refuses to wait, we’ll leave tonight after dark.”
“There’s something I need to make clear.” Joaquin eased his right arm free and traced Eliza’s mouth with one fingertip. “I love you, and I always will. It will make no difference if you have to let other men touch you. I’ll love you, even after a thousand other men.”
She smiled, brave for an instant. “I’ve loved you since I saw you sitting outside the church.”
For long minutes, they lay still and silent, holding each other, trying to overcome their fear for the future.
“We haven’t opened the gift Madame Jolie left for you,” Eliza said at long last. “Maybe it’s something of value that we can sell. If we could get enough money for a railroad ticket, you’d be back sooner.”
Reluctantly, Joaquin rose and fetched the calico parcel from the storeroom. It rankled him to feel so helpless, outsmarted by a woman whose motives he couldn’t figure out. “Here,” he said, dropping the parcel to the floor. “You open it.”
Ivory lace spilled out as Eliza unraveled the dusty bundle. Yards and yards of ivory silk and lace. With a startled cry, she leapt to her feet. Lifting the rustling fabric against her nightgown, she stared at Joaquin with wonder in her eyes. “It’s a wedding dress,” she said softly. “The most beautiful wedding dress I’ve ever seen.”
“There’s a note.” Joaquin picked up the small stack of parchment, tied together with a pale blue silk ribbon. He untied the knot and opened the first folded sheet. There was no greeting, no address, just a few simple lines of text.
You gave comfort to my girls. You deserve comfort in return. Eliza is my gift to you.
His chest felt too full to breathe. Joaquin opened the larger document. His eyes misted. He told himself grown men didn’t cry, but his heart ignored the command. Without a word, he handed the papers to Eliza.
“It’s my contract with Madame Jolie! It says my debt is paid in full!” In a cloud of ivory silk and lace, Eliza tumbled to her knees and flung her arms around him. “I want to get married in the church.” She arched away from him. “I know you swore never to set foot in a church, but will you do it, just this once, for me?” She jumped up. Clutching the dress to her body, she began to whirl around the floor, singing a song he’d never heard before.
But just as he’d known, she sang like an angel.
Eliza froze mid-step. “This is real, isn’t it? Not some cruel joke, as you suggested?”
In Joaquin’s mind, fragments of conversation jostled and whirled, like ingredients in a pan of soup bubbling on the stove. Idle talk, while he’d been holding Nora in his arms, trying to soothe away her nightmares, or while he’d taught Ruby how to assess a poker hand.
“The girls say the madam is good to them.” His eyes searched Eliza’s, as if looking for the answers there. “She never talks about her past, but sometimes a letter comes from Boston. And on a certain day in March every year, she shuts herself in her room. In the morning, her face is puffed from tears. Once, when helping with the accounts, Nora opened the wrong drawer in the office desk by mistake. She found a daguerreotype of Madame Jolie holding a baby in her arms. The girls think she’s lost a child.” Joaquin frowned as acceptance of the gift gradually pushed away the doubts. “Maybe she wants you to have what she never could. Sometimes, it eases the pain of loss to help others avoid a similar fate.”
“I’ll do my best to be worthy of her gift,” Eliza said. Then the color drained from her face. “I…you do want to marry me…don’t you?”
Joaquin rose. Ignoring the fact that he had no clothes on, he walked up to her, bowed with a flourish, and sank down on one knee. “Miss Eliza Hargreaves, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?” As he watched a smile brighten her face, he winked at her. “Your husband-to-be might be a gambler, but he’s not entirely without manners.”
“In the church?” she whispered, pressing the dress to her chest with fisted hands.
“In the church.” He rose to his feet and stood before her. “I’ll marry you in front of the preacher, and sit beside you through the service every Sunday.” He cupped her chin and ran his thumb over her lower lip. “I’ve buried my anger and guilt. Now it’s time for you to bury your fear.”
****
They decided not to tell anyone about their wedding plans. In the eyes of the decent families of Lone Gulch, the divide between good women and fallen ones was thin and clear, and Eliza had fallen on the wrong side of that line. If those families knew that she was planning to attend church, she feared they would shun her and keep away.
She needed to catch them by surprise. And then, she’d force them to listen.
On Sunday, Joaquin and Eliza waited until the service was almost over. As the last notes of the final hymn faded, Eliza pushed open the church door. Her hair cascaded around her shoulders, the way Joaquin liked it, and she’d gathered a bouquet of wildflowers. The wedding dress had been too big, but she’d spent the past two days altering it to fit. The neckline fell off her shoulders, and the bodice hugged her slim figure that was finally starting to fill out, now that she got enough to eat.
Joaquin wore polished black boots, black trousers, and a short black jacket with silver embroidery. All in all, Eliza thought they must be the grandest couple Lone Gulch had ever seen. She’d argued against Joaquin wearing a gun to the church, and finally he’d agreed to stand in the doorway while the weapon was needed and remove it before coming inside.
Heads turned as Eliza took the first step down the aisle. The murmur of startled voices floated over her like a rustle of wind. That Hargreaves girl…murderess…did it with an iron poker…unstable…she went crazy…should be in the cemetery next to her father…she killed her own father…murderer…loco…killer…
Eliza fought the sick feeling. She had expected that people would get up and try to leave, but everyone sat still. Curiosity burned in their eyes, mixed with flashes of hatred and pity. She kept her head high until she stood in front of the preacher.
“We’ve come to be married,” she said, loud enough to make sure everyone heard.
The preacher, who also filled the role of the undertaker and was trying to start a newspaper, glanced around. Joaquin had warned her that the man’s reactions were driven by what would make the best story in next week’s edition. She could just imagine what went on in his mind right now.
Heroic preacher refuses to wed renegade couple.
Compassionate Man of God weds young lovers.
Mayhem at the church, preacher saves lives by decisive action.
Eliza decided to help him along to the last headline. “The groom has a gun,” she told him. “He’ll start shooting unless you agree to marry us. You can choose who dies first.”
The man’s sharp throat bobbed as he swallowed. For a moment, Eliza panicked, thinking the preacher might faint, but, in the next moment, he puffed out his chest and nodded. “Marrying couples is my job.” He sent her a sour look. “Normally, I prefer people to make arrangements beforehand, but I’ll make an exception, in the circumstances.”
“Good.” Eliza turned. A hundred pairs of eyes stared at her. For an instant, her courage failed. A tremor seize
d her body, the way it used to when she saw her father take out the wooden stick before he started beating her. Then her gaze fell on Joaquin. His encouraging nod reached out to her like a warm embrace.
Eliza drew a breath and started her speech. “You all know that I killed my father, but you don’t know why. He was a swindler. He married rich women for their fortune. His two former wives died of a stomach complaint within a month. I was too young to understand that he had poisoned them. When he discovered that the widow Redwood had no money, he tried to strangle her. I hit my father with an iron poker to stop him from killing her. Not because I flew into a rage. I’m not crazy. My mother died when I was born, and I grew up in fear of my father who would beat me if I didn’t obey his every word. The only crime I’m guilty of is cowardice.”
Silence fell when she stopped talking. Complete silence. Then a few feet shuffled. A few heads bent together to whisper. But no one spoke out, no one addressed her, no one said they were sorry for having ostracized her. Their eyes avoided her, but she couldn’t tell if it was due to guilt or resentment.
“Please,” she said, the rehearsed words scattering from her mind. “I want a chance for happiness. I want to live here in Lone Gulch. I want to work at the cantina and be a part of the community and bear children for the man I love. Today, I want to stand before you as I take my marriage vows, and I want you to rejoice for me.”
Silence. Eliza felt her grip crushing the stems of the wildflowers in her hands. These people couldn’t find forgiveness in their hearts. They were rejecting her. Then someone stood up in the third pew. Missy Pendrake, a girl of fourteen. She flung away her father’s restraining hand on her arm and turned to Eliza.
“About time,” she said tartly. “I want to sit down for cookies and lemonade on your porch but Papa won’t let me because you’re living in sin.”
A hesitant burst of laugher started at the back pew. It caught, and soon the church echoed with mirth. The preacher gestured for Joaquin to enter. He holstered his weapon. Heinrich Weiss, the burly blacksmith, got up to confiscate the gun and the belt.
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