Counterfeit Cowboy

by Lacy Williams

  By the time they had walked the few blocks to the hotel, Erin was able to compose herself. Or maybe the shock of warmth inside compared to the blustery wind outdoors roused her.

  Somehow, she ordered refreshment to be sent up to their rooms while Jesse waited near the elevator, watching her with hooded eyes.

  He seemed as discomfited by the kiss they’d shared as she was. But surely he was more experienced than she—it had been her first kiss. She never could have imagined the swirling emotions that the warmth of his lips would evoke. It had frightened her. And she had liked it.

  She glanced around at the other hotel guests in the lobby. Could they tell just by looking at her that her life would never be the same?

  Her father never would have permitted the intimacy, but she was no longer in her father’s safe little world. She thought perhaps Jesse would have said something about the kiss by now, but he hadn’t.

  She joined him at the elevator and when she took his arm, the awareness still simmered between them. She could see it in his gaze, as if he didn’t quite know what to make of her.

  She didn’t know what to make of him, either. She’d never been attracted to one of the men her father had paraded before her, not like the way she felt now with Jesse.

  Heat climbed into her cheeks as they rode the elevator up, but he still didn’t say anything, and she began to wonder if he regretted the impulsive action. Had she done it incorrectly? She couldn’t be sure, not if he didn’t say anything.

  She usually wasn’t one to avoid an issue—her angry flight from her father’s home had been an aberration more than anything—so she shored up her courage to just ask Jesse outright, but then they arrived at Pete’s room and before she could open her mouth to question him, Jesse pushed open the door.

  Inside, the curtains had been drawn back, flooding the room with light.

  Pete was just waking up, groggy and grumbling about being hungry, but with beautiful color filling his cheeks and rumpled hair indicating he’d had a good rest. The nurse said he should be fine to eat, and then she left.

  She must’ve cleaned the room while they’d been gone, because it certainly smelled better than when they’d left.

  Pete’s eyes turned on Erin with surprise. “What’re you doin’ here?”

  He started to get out of the bed and then seemed to realize he was missing some clothes, because he burrowed back under the blankets, splotches of red climbing in his neck and cheeks.

  “It’s a little late for modesty,” Jesse told the boy. Erin couldn’t see his face as he approached the bed, but she thought his voice sounded teasing. “Miss Erin spent half the night sponging you with cool water to keep your fever down. Do you remember much of last night? Miss Erin got off the train with us and brought us here and fetched you a doctor. And then she stayed up with you to make sure you were going to be all right.”

  Erin left her satchel on the sideboard and brought the packages to the bed, while Pete self-consciously held the blanket before his bare chest. His skinny arms almost brought tears to her eyes. Focusing on him was a welcome diversion, since she wasn’t going to mention the kiss in front of him.

  “And Jesse spent the other half the night doing the same.” Her fingers tangled with the twine securing one of the packages as she tried to open it. She kept her eyes down, fearing that if she looked at Jesse, her confusion and uncertainty would be plain on her face.

  “You—you did? Why?” The poignant note in Pete’s voice brought her eyes up. When she met his gaze, his eyes seemed to hold a deeper question, but then he blinked and the moment was gone. “And—where’s my clothes?”

  She finally untangled the knot and began folding back the paper. “Your old clothes were very soiled, and when I sent them down to be washed...well, they didn’t survive.”

  “Miss Erin picked you out some new clothes. Storebought ones,” Jesse said.

  She didn’t look at him when he spoke, still afraid of showing emotions that were too close to the surface.

  Now Pete began to look decidedly suspicious of her. “Why’d you do that?”

  She’d expected him to be a bit more thankful, not question her motives. She kept a smile on her face. “Because you needed them. Consider it a Christmas gift from a new friend.”

  His brows wrinkled and he looked as if he might protest, but Jesse’s wide hand came down on his shoulder. “It’s polite to say thank you,” the older brother said, tone brooking no-nonsense.

  Pete shrugged his hand off quickly, looking from Jesse to Erin, eyes suspicious of both of them now.

  Erin didn’t need thanks, didn’t want to be a source of contention between the two. And as she wasn’t as composed about the kiss in the park as she’d thought she was, she needed a moment alone to gather her thoughts.

  She laid the pants and shirt out on the bed, smoothing a wrinkle before backing toward the door. “Someone will bring up a meal soon. I’ll freshen up a bit and give you both a chance to do the same, and then I’ll join you again. How does that sound?”

  She turned to leave but then remembered what she wanted to ask about, so she turned back. “Oh, and Pete, I’d like to know more about what you said last night. Some things about your family...?”

  For a moment, she imagined she saw a flash of panic enter Pete’s features, but then he turned his face down, away from her gaze. She determined to get to the bottom of things over lunch. With that, she excused herself.

  * * *

  The door had barely latched behind Erin when the kid vaulted out of the bed and began pulling the new clothes on, paper crackling as he snatched the pants off the bed.

  “What happened between the two of you?” Pete asked, hopping on one foot when he got tangled in the pants.

  “What do you mean?” asked Jesse, though he was pretty sure the kid had read the tension between Erin and him after that kiss. He was too smart for his britches.

  “You kiss her or something? She was acting about as skittish as a wife whose husband is about to come home from the fact’ry when the chores ain’t done.”

  Paper crackled. Pete struggled into the shirt, shaky fingers fumbling with the buttons. His stomach rumbled, loud in the quiet room. Jesse could relate. He was mighty hungry after all their running around last night and this morning.

  The kid glanced up at Jesse, pausing in his frantic movements. “You did kiss her.”

  Jesse didn’t want to talk about that. Not with Pete right now. Not with anybody. It was a memory he was going to hold with him for as long as he lived.

  “What’s your rush?” Jesse asked, thinking the kid sure was in a hurry to get dressed. “She’s not going to barge back in here, if that’s what you’re worried about. At least, not without knocking.” And if she did as he expected, she was going to hide out in her room for a while.

  The kid shook his head, opening his mouth to say something, but then he went still as he knocked away the paper from the last package, a new pair of leather shoes. He went perfectly still, all the nervous energy in him seeming to freeze.

  “Shoes, too?” The question was barely a breath, so low Jesse almost didn’t hear it. Pete touched the boot, just ran one finger across its shiny, new surface.

  And Jesse knew that he was feeling the same thing Jesse had felt when she’d wanted to spend the morning helping him—first with locating Jared Kenner and then with purchasing Pete’s clothing.

  Why had someone like her chosen to give someone like him such a gift? Like Pete, he got the feeling that something was off here, but Erin’s pull on Jesse was too strong for him to think about walking away. If she pushed him away after that kiss, he’d go. But if she allowed it, he wanted to spend the rest of the day with her, as she most likely was going to hop on the first train headed West tomorrow morning.

  Pete snatched up a pair of thick woolen socks
from amongst his spoils and began tugging them on, leaning against the bed. “I’ve got to get outta here.”

  And Jesse realized he’d been in a hurry to get dressed because he was trying to leave. Jesse intercepted him before he got to the door, still in his sock feet. “Wait a minute—”

  Pete jerked away from the hand Jesse clamped on his shoulder, but he spun toward the room, not the door, where Jesse planted himself with arms crossed.

  “I’d think you’d want to split, too,” Pete said. “Erin find out you’ve been in prison yet?”

  Jesse froze and knew he’d given himself away. “Good guess. How’d you figure it out?”

  “You sure ain’t a cowboy.” Pete began ticking things off his fingers. “I ain’t never seen anybody turn up their nose at potatoes so much—what’d they do, serve them three times a day?”

  Jesse stayed silent, the kid’s words hitting close to home. He was tired of potatoes.

  “And you’re plumb particular about your space. Anybody brushes up against you and you tense up.”

  That much was true, too. Jesse hadn’t got used to being among the regular population just yet.

  “You let me go now and Erin never finds out,” Pete cajoled.

  “I can’t do that.” Jesse sighed, knowing this was a mess. But he had no intention of walking away from Erin before he had to. She was special and he wanted to experience being with her even if it could only be for hours, only for today. “I want the rest of the day with her.”

  The boy stuck his chin up in the air in an expression Jesse was coming to recognize.

  “It’s gonna cost ya.”

  Jesse tensed as the little blackmailer threw the words out there. “You got out of Boston. We both did. Can’t you give me the rest of the day?”

  The kid shot Jesse a look that said clear as day, You’ve got to be joshing.

  “You know I don’t have any money,” Jesse protested.

  “Don’t mean ya can’t get some—what were ya in for?”

  It was Jesse’s turn to be stubborn. The kid might’ve guessed he’d been in prison but he wasn’t volunteering information that could be used against him.

  Pete shrugged. “Whatever you get for yourself before we part company, I get half.”

  Still conflicted, Jesse didn’t even know if he planned to run a swindle in the next twenty-four hours, so the agreement might not be so bad.

  “Fine, but no pickpocketing.”

  “What?” the kid howled. “Nuh-uh. Let’s just cut our losses. Look, I ain’t even gonna take the shoes, all right? She can take ’em to the store and get her money back.”

  Jesse should his head. “It’s not about the shoes. Erin got off the train and helped you because you were real sick. She’s bringing lunch up now—”

  The kid shook his head, eyeing the door again. Jesse couldn’t understand what he was so afraid of.

  “Look, I—”

  “Knock, knock!” Erin’s sunny voice rang out and the door opened behind Jesse, nudging him farther into the room. “Lunch delivery.”

  * * *

  Erin could feel the almost palpable tension between the brothers when she stepped back in the room.

  Pete was dressed and in his sock feet, standing in the middle of the room. Jesse looked much the same as when she’d left, but he’d been standing near the door. What had they been doing in the short time since she’d left?

  She allowed the attendant rolling a white-clothed cart to follow her into the room. He began unloading silver-covered dishes onto the table, filling the room with decadent smells that had Erin’s mouth watering.

  The table in the room only had two chairs and Jesse pulled it over next to the bed, allowing Pete to sit cross-legged while Jesse and Erin took the chairs.

  Pete began stuffing his face, much as he had on the train, until he realized both Erin and Jesse watched him a bit incredulously and he slowed to a more polite speed. Occasionally, he glanced toward the door, and he kept shooting speaking glances at his older brother.

  The manners her mother had drilled into her demanded Erin wait until after the meal to discuss an unpalatable topic, so she ate mostly in silence. After Pete leaned away from the table, patting his stomach in satisfaction, and Jesse had laid his fork on the table, she took a deep breath.

  “There’s something I’ve been curious about since last night,” she said, pushing her chair back away from the table a bit. “I think you were probably delirious, Pete, but you called out for your ma and your sister.”

  He fidgeted in place and began to rub one palm against the new fabric on his knee. He wouldn’t look directly at her.

  “I only want to make sure there isn’t someone back in Boston that needs care,” she went on in her most reassuring voice. “If your sister is still under the care of the same aunt and uncle that allowed you to...well, to get in this condition, then I want to... I could send a telegram to my father and ensure someone removes her from the situation.”

  Pete still wouldn’t look at her, and when she glanced at Jesse, that familiar muscle in his cheek was jumping, though he held himself as if he was entirely relaxed in his chair. One leg crossed over the other.

  “You also told me that you didn’t have a brother,” she reminded Pete softly.

  And watched the transformation as both man and boy froze. Nothing in particular changed in their expressions, but it was the very act of becoming so still and emotionless that confirmed what she had begun to suspect in the wee hours.

  “You aren’t really brothers,” she stated clearly. Growing agitation made her stand up and pace toward the door.

  “Erin, wait—” Jesse was already out of his chair, one arm outstretched toward her, when she whirled back toward the room.

  “I wasn’t leaving,” she said, crossing her arms over her middle. “I want to know what exactly is going on.” Her stomach flipped at the thought that they had lied to her all this time—or at least if they hadn’t outright lied, they had let her believe that they were brothers when they really weren’t. She felt slightly sick.

  Pete and Jesse exchanged guilty glances and then both began to talk.

  “We first met on that train out of Boston.”

  “I didn’t think the conductor would let a kid like me travel on my own—”

  “The kid seemed harmless enough, and I was heading out of town anyway—” As he spoke, Jessed rubbed the back of his neck as if the muscles there pained him.

  “My ma passed about a year ago and my sister and I got taken to an orphanage—” Pete fidgeted with the cuff of his new shirt.

  “It just seemed easier to let people—you—think we were related.”

  “She got adopted by this real nice family, but I ran away.”

  “And once we’d started the story, it was harder and harder to tell you the truth....”

  “And then I didn’t want to be in Boston no more so I got on a train.” The young man’s story finally petered out just after Jesse’s explanation. Both seemed resigned, waiting for her reaction.

  She kept an even stare directed at them, the man standing with shoulders slumped, and the boy with chin nearly meeting his chest. The sunlight streaming in the windows behind them seemed incongruous to the tension inside the room.

  “That’s not all of it, is it?” she asked.

  She remained silent, waiting. During this prolonged pause, they didn’t look at each other, both stared resolutely downward. She wondered if they knew just how much alike they were.

  Finally, Jesse took a deep breath and seemed to be steeling himself to speak again, but it was Pete who blurted out, “It’s all my fault, Miss Erin. I’m the one who sat down next to Jesse and...er—” he squirmed a bit in his seat “—convinced him to take me along on the train. It wasn’t his idea at all. I’m the
one who said he was my brother.”

  Jesse stood tall. “Yeah, but I didn’t have to agree to it. Some of the blame for this misunderstanding falls to me.”

  Misunderstanding. She almost giggled aloud at the overexaggeration but was afraid they’d think she was in hysterics. Which she nearly was.

  Her mind whirling, she suddenly remembered the cryptic conversation between Jesse and Pete that first night on the train, after the conductor had brought Pete back from wherever he’d escaped to.

  “You’re a thief,” she said faintly. “A pickpocket.”

  Pete’s face turned white, almost as white as it had been last night when he’d been weak from food poisoning.

  “And you knew about it,” she accused Jesse, spinning to face him. She pressed a hand against her now-roiling stomach. She’d hardly eaten, but what she had now lodged inside her uncomfortably, making her feel distinctly sick.

  Jesse’s face had hardened into a mask she couldn’t recognize. “I guess a boy will do just about anything to survive,” he said simply. “To eat.”

  Just as quickly, the memory came of Pete loading his face that first morning, until his cheeks pouched out like a chipmunk’s. She could still feel the bones of his spine beneath her hand as she’d helped him to the washroom when he’d gotten sick. He had been starving.

  But that still didn’t make it right. And it didn’t erase her lost trust, now that she found out they’d been pretending to be something they weren’t the whole time she’d known them.

  “Are ya real mad?” Pete asked, voice small.

  She shook her head, then shrugged. “I don’t know what I am.” She lowered herself into the chair again when her legs went weak. Mostly, she felt numb, but also betrayed and hurt.

  And then she remembered that she only had to face this situation for another few hours—in the morning she would board a train to Wyoming to see her brother for Christmas.

  Surely, she could stuff away her hurt feelings until then.

  “So what do you plan to do now?” she asked. “A young man such as yourself can’t do enough factory work to support himself. Hawking papers or something like that won’t pay much either, not enough to support you.” She faced Jesse again. “I don’t suppose you’ve thought much past today, either?”