Trail of Aces (Hot on the Trail Book 8)

by Merry Farmer

  Charlie blew out a breath, wiping a hand over his face. How had things gotten so out of hand so quickly? It seemed like only days ago that he and Olivia were getting along like a dream, growing closer, enjoying each other’s company, each other’s kisses. Where had things gone so wrong?

  He knew the answer to that as soon as the question popped into his head. Chet Devlin.

  “I should have shot that bastard the moment I saw him again at Ft. Laramie,” he finished his thought aloud.

  “It wouldn’t have done any good,” Pete told him. He nodded to Josephine as she and Lucy sent Charlie one last look before hurrying off to find Olivia.

  “It would have made me feel better,” Charlie insisted. Now that the ladies were gone, he wanted to use far more colorful language to describe the kinds of things he wanted to do to Chet.

  “Give her a chance to cool off,” Graham advised him. “A woman has a right to be in a temper when she’s had a shock.”

  “And when she hasn’t,” Gideon added. He and Graham exchanged looks, then burst into guilty laughter. And no wonder, seeing as the two of them had both landed themselves fine examples of femininity in the form of Estelle and Lucy.

  Pete broke the momentary light mood. “Do you know what Chet told Olivia?” he asked.

  “I have a pretty good idea.” Charlie planted his hands on his hips, wishing he had a revolver to reach for.

  “And is it that bad?” Pete asked on.

  Charlie hesitated. “Could be.”

  In fact, if what he suspected was true, if Chet had revealed the source of his fortune, it could be devastating. Because, of course, Chet wouldn’t tell the true story. Chet didn’t know the true story. He only knew enough to bring Charlie down in the eyes of the only woman he’d ever cared about.

  He had given up his heart and soul to Olivia. These past few weeks had been a revelation. They had changed everything. At least they had changed everything for him. His heart went all soft, like a loaf of warm bread, fresh from the oven, when he thought about the journey so far. It wasn’t just the landscape that had changed as they traversed every mile. He’d changed too.

  “I still say that if you give her some time, she’ll come around,” Pete said, thumping Charlie on the back.

  “She won’t come around on her own,” Charlie replied. He shifted his weight, staring at the back of the wagon train, hoping to catch a glimpse of his wife.

  Olivia hadn’t wanted to marry him in the first place. Even though she did, he’d had to win her over. He’d tried every trick up his sleeve to turn her head and make her smile. She’d kept him up nights and shaken him down to his soul. His mind and body had been unsettled since the moment they’d met, but he prided himself on the fact that he’d managed to stir her up as much as she’d stirred him.

  It had taken work, effort, charm, and class to get his surprise wife to smile at him with fire in her eyes, to turn her head up to him and soften her lips in hopes of a kiss. He’d coaxed her along, losing his heart to her in the process. It had been worth it.

  It would be worth it again. He’d been able to win Olivia once before, he would be able to win her back now.

  All he had to do was retrace his steps….

  Chapter Two

  Kansas, Six weeks earlier…

  Olivia Walters was beginning to lose track of days. The landscape around her home in Butler County, Ohio was flat and lush with farms, but it was nothing to the endless sea of grassland that made up the Kansas prairie. At home, she had been used to helping out on her family’s farm, when she wasn’t busy at the school. Her days had been filled with activity and purpose, whether that was collecting eggs from the henhouse or preparing the next day’s lesson for her students. Her mother had always made sure of that. The importance of being an upright, productive citizen had been drilled into her since she was a girl. Perhaps a little too hard.

  She finished wiping the last of the dishes that had been used for the midday meal with tufts of grass. Water was too precious for washing this far away from any river aside from the muddy, meandering Platte River. All she had to look forward now was an afternoon with little to do but walk, walk, and walk some more.

  “I never imagined my journey west would be so repetitive.” She sighed, handing a stack of cleaned plates to Mrs. Hamilton.

  Mrs. Hamilton, weary and fussy, took the plates with a shake of her head. “You didn’t have to come west with us, you know. You had a perfectly glorious life waiting for you back home.”

  Heat infused Olivia’s face, and she glanced down at her hands twisting in the fabric of the apron she wore over her simple skirt and blouse. “I wouldn’t say that.”

  “Well, I would,” Mrs. Hamilton came back with energy. She clucked and shook her head. “When a man as fine as Silas Pitts shows an interest, a girl should take notice instead of running away.”

  Olivia pressed her lips together. “I am not running away.” And Silas wasn’t as fine as most folks back home thought he was.

  “He is such a handsome man, that Silas,” Mrs. Hamilton went on. She straightened from the crate where she’d stored the plates to wait for the next meal, sighing toward the horizon. “What a lovely head of hair. And such sideburns. So fashionable.”

  Olivia wrinkled her nose, hoping Mrs. Hamilton wouldn’t catch her at it. Silas was a little too proud of those sideburns. “He was much older than me,” she said, crossing around to the back of the wagon to see if there was any mending that needed to be done.

  There wasn’t. The mending box was empty. She had been too efficient in keeping up with her chores in the Hamiltons’ wagon. Her efficiency left her with nothing to do.

  “A girl could do worse than to accept the suit of a man with a few gray hairs,” Mrs. Hamilton scolded. She didn’t have anything to keep her busy once the dishes were put away, but it didn’t bother her. She found a spot in the shade of the wagon, sat with a sigh, and leaned against the wagon wheel, hands crossed over her stomach. “Silas had money too, and you all but threw it back in his face.”

  “He wanted me to give up my position as teacher at the Fairfield school.” Olivia crossed her arms. She wasn’t willing to lounge away the remainder of their midday rest the way Mrs. Hamilton was, but she did allow herself to lean against the back of the wagon.

  “Ha.” Mrs. Hamilton huffed. “I would have been more than happy to wash my hands of that load of noisy children in favor of relaxing in a fine house with rich furnishings.” She glanced up at Olivia under the brim of her bonnet. “You know that most of the ladies in town thought you were plumb out of your mind to choose the school over the wedding, don’t you? And that your mother considers you an ungrateful snob?”

  “I do,” Olivia replied, deadpan. She was used to her mother’s disapproval, and if any of the other women in town were willing to put up with Silas Pitts’s heavy breathing and wandering eye, then they were welcome to the man. Olivia might even have considered him if Silas’s eyes had wandered in her direction. But no, he had looked at several of the older girls in her school with more interest than he’d shown her. Olivia doubted the man was shameless enough or had enough of a backbone to ever act on those inappropriate looks, but she only had to catch him in the act of ogling thirteen-year-old Peggy Price once to know there was no way on earth she would ever accept his suit.

  If only that had been the end of it. Silas didn’t take no for an answer. He’d wedged his way into the pew beside her every Sunday at church. He’d asked to stand up with her more times than was appropriate every time the town held a dance. He’d followed her home from school, and worse, showed up in her classroom to peep at the girls, all in the name of wanting to escort her home, so many times that Olivia had had to ask Constable Hendricks to keep an eye out for him at the end of the school day.

  Even that would have been bearable, but every old biddy in town had been convinced that Silas and Olivia would make the perfect match. Their censure hadn’t fallen on Silas for behaving inappropriately, it had lan
ded squarely on Olivia’s shoulders for being a tease and holding out long after she should have done what was right and natural and accepted the man’s hand in marriage. Her mother claimed to have borne the brunt of the shame, and had made herself unbearable to live with.

  “I love teaching.” Olivia finished her glum thoughts aloud, even though Mrs. Hamilton had closed her eyes to nap. “I’ve wanted to teach for as long as I can remember.”

  “Humph. You could have taught yours and Silas’s children, once you had them. Women are meant to be wives and mothers, serving their husband and their home. They aren’t supposed to wander in the wilderness, not when they’ve had perfectly agreeable offers of marriage.”

  Olivia’s shoulders dropped, and she slumped harder against the wagon. She should have known Mrs. Hamilton wouldn’t sympathize with her. She’d been one of the biddies who clucked and fussed when Olivia finally challenged her mother, declaring she would rather die an old maid than marry Silas. Olivia still wasn’t sure why Mrs. Hamilton had agreed to let her travel west to Oregon with them once she’d learned they were going. The fee she’d offered them—years’ worth of her teaching earnings—might have had something to do with it. Olivia had a sinking feeling the only reason she was tolerated on the journey was because Mrs. Hamilton and her mother were friends, and the Hamiltons were saving her mother the embarrassment of having a disobedient, single daughter at home by whisking her away.

  Well, she would show them all how wrong they were. Olivia glanced off over the rolling prairie grass and took in a deep breath, scented with the honesty of dirt and animals and sunshine. She was enjoying her trek into a new life. She’d befriended such interesting people—Estelle from the Deep South, Lucy Haskell, who talked loud, laughed loud, and didn’t care what people thought about her, and Josephine Lewis, an enigmatic old maid—if forty could be considered old—from Philadelphia, who valued her independence as much as Olivia valued hers. Her new friends gave her courage, and had helped her open a school of sorts on the trail. With this newfound sense of purpose, she was certain she would find a position teaching school in the exciting new territory of Oregon.

  It wasn’t until she had immersed herself fully in hope for the future, hugging herself and smiling, that she felt a pair of eyes on her. She blinked, bringing herself back down to earth and shielding the sun from her face with the brim of her bonnet. In the process, she spotted him, across the way, down the long line of wagons that had been parked to rest for midday. Mr. Charlie Garrett was watching her.

  A deep blushed filled her face as soon as she realized she’d been caught daydreaming. It only worsened when Mr. Garrett grinned at her. His wasn’t an ordinary, friendly grin either. It was the kind of look that said he knew things. Even from far away, she could tell that his dark eyes sparkled with mirth and mystery. He was handsome, with short, dark hair and dimples that came out when he smiled. He wore fine clothes—finer than anyone else’s on the trail, including Dr. Gideon Faraday’s. It was too hot for him to wear his jacket, but the brocade vest he wore was the sort of thing folks back home only wore on Sundays. And his silver pocket watch? Well, she’d never seen the like.

  She realized she was staring when Mr. Garrett’s grin widened. With a gasp, Olivia stood straighter, searching for something to do, some way to escape. It was too late. Shaking his head, Mr. Garrett gestured for her to come closer to him, not unlike the way the wolf must have gestured to Little Red Riding Hood.

  Olivia chewed on her lip and glanced over her shoulder at Mrs. Hamilton. The woman had fallen asleep in the shade, her breathing long and steady. Olivia peeked back at Mr. Garrett. He wasn’t exactly a stranger. He had introduced himself to her on the very first day, before they’d departed Independence. He’d seemed nice enough, though there was something about him that she didn’t fully trust. But he did fascinate her. If he was as wealthy as he appeared to be, why hadn’t he taken the train or a stagecoach west? He was handsome and friendly, so why was he sitting by himself now, playing solitaire?

  Curiosity got the better of Olivia. That or sheer boredom. She pushed away from the Hamiltons’ wagon, winding her way down the line of wagons, camps, and animals until she reached Mr. Garrett’s camp.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Olivia,” he greeted her, his smile wide.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Garrett.”

  His smile grew teasing. “Now, Miss Olivia, I asked you to call me Charlie,” he said, a lazy, southern lilt to his accent.

  “I’m not used to calling men I don’t know by their given name, Mr. Garrett,” she replied, holding her own.

  He laughed. “Come now. Two weeks on the trail, and surely you’d concede that we know each other, at least a bit.”

  It went against every rule of propriety that Olivia knew, but something about Mr. Garrett—Charlie—drew her in and made her want to talk and joke with him. Maybe it was the sparkle in his eyes, or maybe it was the way he took time to chat with everyone in the wagon train, even the rambunctious children. Children liked him, and if she was being honest, Olivia trusted the opinions of children even more than those of adults. And maybe she just wanted to laugh for a change.

  “Sit down,” he went on, gesturing for her to take a seat on the spindly, wooden chair that sat on the other side of the crate where he’d laid his cards for solitaire. “We get so little chance to sit and rest that we should take advantage of it as often as possible.”

  Olivia sighed and sat. “I agree with that much.”

  “So cautious.” Charlie winked at her. “We’ll have to see if we can’t get you to throw caution to the wind.”

  “I’m not cautious, only careful,” Olivia argued. “You have to be careful when you’re entrusted with the minds and education of children.”

  Charlie sat straighter. “I’m impressed. You must be a fine teacher.”

  Olivia flushed with self-consciousness. “I do my best.”

  “I’m certain you do your best at everything you try.” His smile was as broad as ever. Did he approve of her statement or was he teasing her? With Charlie Garrett, it was hard to tell. “Would you care for a game of cards?” He swept up his game of solitaire, shuffling the cards together into a pile.

  A wave of daring washed over Olivia. The men had been playing cards off and on since the wagon train set out. Women were never invited, of course. Card games were not the sort of thing well-mannered young ladies engaged in.

  “Yes,” she said with a smile that surprised her. “I think I would.”

  Charlie winked at her again, and a rush of warmth swirled down Olivia’s spine. She told herself it was only because he was charming, and because he was offering her something that, while not exactly forbidden, ladies didn’t do. He then proceeded to deal each of them five cards before placing the stack of cards in the center of the crate table.

  “I assume you know how to play poker?” he asked. The flash in his eyes said that he expected her to blush and stammer and say no, she didn’t.

  Olivia had never been one to back down from a challenge, no matter how quietly she faced them on the outside. “In fact, I do.” She met his grin with one of her own, one of triumph.

  Charlie nodded, tilting his head to the side as he studied his hand. “I’m impressed. Let’s see how you do. Ante up.”

  Olivia’s mouth dropped open. “I…I’m afraid I don’t have any money with me. We usually played for buttons back home.” Inwardly, she rolled her eyes at how silly she sounded.

  If Charlie thought she was ridiculous, he didn’t let on. He only nodded as he studied his cards. “All right, then. I’ll loan you a few coins.”

  He folded his hand together, then reached into his pocket. Olivia’s eyes went wide at the handful of silver coins he plopped on the tabletop. Most of them were small, nickels and dimes, but enough were silver dollars that her pulse sped up. Everyone whispered speculations about how much money Charlie Garrett had won in his gambling. She’d hardly given it a second thought. Until now. The man must be wealthy ind
eed.

  “There.” He counted out the coins, sliding half of them across to her. At the last minute, he held on to one nickel, placing it in the center with one of his own. “Now, do you have any opening bets?”

  Olivia glanced at her cards. They were fair, but nothing to get excited over. She selected a dime from her pile and placed it in the pot. Charlie grinned and met her bet.

  “How many cards would you like?” he asked.

  “Two.”

  They played. Olivia won the first hand, though her cards were mediocre at best. She won the second hand as well, lost the third and the fourth, then had a winning streak of four hands. The money on the table shifted back and forth, neither of them winning or losing too much. She supposed it would be more lively to play with a larger number of people, but Charlie didn’t seem to mind. She didn’t either, if truth be told.

  “So what brings a beautiful woman like you out to the Oregon Trail?” Charlie asked once they had played so many hands that Olivia lost track.

  “I’m heading west to become a teacher at a school that truly needs me,” Olivia answered, focused more on her cards than the conversation. She didn’t really care to remember her other reasons for fleeing home anyhow. She had two queens, and if she drew the right cards on the next play, she could have an impressive hand.

  “And you’re going by yourself? No young men following you in search of your hand?”

  She peeked up over the top of her cards with a look intended to set him down. Instead, it made Charlie chuckle, the spark in his eyes bright enough to light the heavens.

  “I’m dedicated to teaching,” she said.

  Charlie shrugged. “Couldn’t you teach as a married woman?”

  “It simply isn’t done. Two cards, please.”

  “Fair enough.” Charlie dealt two cards from the top of the deck.

  Olivia bit her lip in disappointment. A four and a nine. Not particularly useful. She sorted them into place, then glanced up at Charlie. He was watching her with that tricky fondness of his.