Trail of Aces (Hot on the Trail Book 8)

by Merry Farmer

  What if she arranged things to create a wider space in the wagon bed? A space big enough for two? A space big enough for two who might do a little bit of moving around in the night? She’d been polite and turned a blind eye to more than a few wagons that had been rocking at night, never imagining she would ever be in a position for people to ignore her wagon rocking. Heavens above. What would her mother say if she knew her own daughter was enjoying the company of her husband with only a thin layer of canvas separating her from the neighbors?

  She laughed at the thought and continued shifting boxes, her heart a hundred times lighter and a thousand times more wicked.

  Her heart was still light when she attempted to lift Charlie’s small, locked box. It was much heavier than she remembered it being. Then again, the last time she’d seen it, all she’d had to do was shift it, not pick it up. The extremity of the weight had her as curious as a cat in a cupboard.

  As soon as the trunks and boxes were sorted and stacked on one side of the wagon, she set the heavy box on top, then stared at it. Why would Charlie keep a locked box? To store his valuables, of course.

  A second thought hit her. Was the beautiful diamond and sapphire necklace she had worn to supper a few weeks back inside of the box? It would be a treat to sneak another peek at it. She twisted to survey the rest of the wagon, wondering where the key might be.

  “If I was a key to a box of valuables, where would I be?” she asked aloud.

  Someplace safe. Someplace close. If it was her, she would keep it in a reticule or a pocket. Men didn’t carry reticules, but they did have pockets. Chances were that Charlie had the key with him. Unless…

  She searched back through her memory, recalling a few times when Charlie had taken his dazzling, silver pocket watch from his vest pocket and revealed a small key stowed with it. Yes, she was certain he’d accidentally taken the key out of his pocket along with the watch a few times.

  Dropping to sit on the wagon bed, she searched through the open trunk on the other side of the bed for Charlie’s watch. He was in just his shirtsleeves today, which meant the watch and his vests were in the trunk somewhere.

  Sure enough, it only took a few minutes of searching to find the last vest he’d worn. The watch was still in one pocket, and lucky for her, so was a small key. Feeling like a disobedient child, she giggled, rolling from one side of the wagon to the other and fitting the key in the heavy box’s lock.

  As soon as she opened the lid, she regretted every last bit of her curiosity. She gasped and gripped the fabric of her blouse over her suddenly thundering heart. Not only was her diamond and sapphire necklace right there, so were half a dozen other necklaces—necklaces that made her bauble from the other night look like a child’s toy. The necklaces weren’t all. The box was stuffed full of bracelets and rings and earbobs too—all made of sparkling gems and glowing gold and silver. Beneath the gems were stacks of bills. Stacks and stacks. That one, modest box held within it more of a fortune than Olivia had ever seen, ever dreamed possible.

  She snapped the lid closed, turned the key to lock it, and scooted back to Charlie’s chest of clothes to replace the key in his vest pocket. Then she slammed the lid of his trunk closed. Her heart pounded against her ribs, and her breath came in panicked pants. Her husband was rich. More than just rich. Jewels like that deserved the word ‘wealth.’ She’d married a wealthy man.

  All that from playing cards? The idea didn’t sit right. The sheer volume of money that Charlie’s box contained would have taken years to win in card games. Unless those tournaments she’d heard about on Mississippi riverboats paid out astounding prizes like that. Charlie did say he’d been on a riverboat before. Could that be it?

  She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer. It was an answer that brought too many other questions with it. On the other hand, could she continue to be married to a man who obviously had a secret of some sort?

  “I can’t think about that now,” she whispered to herself. It was too overwhelming, and she had a job to do.

  She twisted and pushed herself to a squat, then stood. The wagon needed to be cleaned. She should focus on that. But now she wasn’t as certain that she was ready to transform the wagon bed into a bed for two. Not until she worked up the courage to ask a few questions.

  Charlie spent the bulk of the afternoon working out ways he might be able to resist falling into his wife’s amorous embrace once the sun went down. Olivia’s shift in attitude from martyr to maiden had thrown him for a loop, especially since he expected her to finally rage at him and call the whole marriage off once she saw his little card trick. The fact that she’d let another one of her walls come down once she knew the truth pressed his belief that he should keep his hands off and give her a chance to annul the marriage once they reached Oregon city to the edge.

  Of course, all that worrying turned out to be for nothing.

  “You’ve started supper already.” He strode back into their camp, sleeves rolled up, suspenders tight over his shoulders, exhaustion from a day’s manual labor taking the edge off his worry.

  “Yes, I didn’t see any point in waiting,” Olivia answered with only the barest glance for him. “I want to turn in early tonight after today’s work. Besides, I hear we’ll be heading out early in the morning in order to make it to Ft. Laramie by midday.”

  Thunder could have cracked above him and it wouldn’t have done as much to highlight his sweet wife’s latest abrupt change the way her hesitancy did.

  “An excellent and sound idea.” He played along, coming to sit on the barrel beside the campfire where she cooked. She didn’t answer, only smiled, her concentration on whatever smelled so delicious in the pot over the fire. “How about we set our bedrolls up side-by-side, out under the open sky, to let the stars watch us while we sleep tonight?”

  “I’m not sure if that—” She paused, a calculating spark in her eyes as she glanced up at the sky, then around at the other camps. At last, she turned to him and smiled. “Yes. Yes, that sounds like a fine idea.”

  It was exactly the idea that both of them needed. Sleeping out under the stars meant sleeping in plain sight of the other pioneers, which meant no funny business. It would nip his temptation in the bud and ease whatever worries had suddenly reached up and grabbed her.

  What worries had grabbed her, causing yet another turn around? Olivia was as fickle as the sea when it came to changing her mind about what she wanted these days.

  “I think I’ll just change out of these clothes before supper.”

  Charlie rose and climbed into the back of the wagon. The whole thing had been rearranged and smelled of chlorine. It was a reassuring scent, like the monastery floors of his childhood. His trunk rested against one side of the wagon bed. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted his treasure chest, tucked away in a pile of boxes at the diagonal opposite end. Not where he’d left it.

  He wouldn’t have given that a second thought, except that as he shed his dirty work clothes and put on a clean shirt and his vest from earlier, the answer to all his questions smacked him upside the head. He reached into his vest pocket to reassure himself that the key to the treasure chest was still there. It wasn’t. In fact, it was, but it had somehow magically switched to the opposite pocket.

  An ordinary key, magically jumping from one pocket to the other while folded and stowed inside of his trunk. Sweet Olivia suddenly acting anxious and suspicious. He didn’t need a teacher to show him that one and one equaled two. Olivia had opened his treasure chest. She knew what it contained. Had it frightened her? Disturbed her?

  He finished dressing, making up his mind as he did that he wouldn’t say anything. He would observe, look for hints in her behavior, just as he did when sizing up opponents across a card table.

  “I’m glad we’ll be reaching Ft Laramie tomorrow.” Olivia made conversation with a casualness that was fake, but faked well, as Charlie resumed his seat on the barrel. “We’re low on just about every kind of supply you could imagi
ne. I was able to make cornbread, but that’s the last of the flour. If I want to make anything that needs flour tomorrow, I’ll have to borrow some from Josephine or Estelle.”

  “I’m sure they’d be happy to lend some.” Charlie took the bowl of what smelled like chili, a thick slice of cornbread balanced on the edge of the bowl, as she offered it. Their hands brushed. That delicious frisson of energy that kept getting stronger and stronger between them was still there. Her eyes darted up to meet his, her cheeks flushed, and the corners of her lips twitched.

  So. She wasn’t going to reject him outright. The attraction was still there. She might have been frightened by what she saw or alarmed by it, but it wasn’t enough to send her running.

  His grin widened and he winked as she turned back to the campfire to spoon up a bowl of chili for herself. This was a minor set-back. Given a little time, she’d be putty in his hands all over again, and once she was, he would use his hands to the best of ability. It was almost worth the wait.

  But, by the time the two of them were tucked in under a night sky filled with stars, the Milky Way glittering like the path that led to dreams, Charlie’s mind wouldn’t let him sleep. He knew how to keep still, to lay on his back and steady his breathing so as not to draw attention to his sleeplessness, but underneath his calm exterior, his brain was hard at work. If Olivia was somehow anxious about his treasure, perhaps it would be best to divest himself of some of it. Ft. Laramie wasn’t much in terms of a trading post, but word was that it had an impressive supply depot that was regularly restocked from cities like Denver City, and even San Francisco. Perhaps he should try his hand at selling some of Margery Hurst’s jewels. He’d get a far better price for them if he waited until he reached the coast, then headed down to San Francisco, but Olivia’s peace of mind was worth far more than diamonds.

  By morning’s first light, when the wagon trains moved out, Charlie’s mind was made up. His plan was helped along as Olivia was caught up in the search for Graham and Estelle’s little Tim, who had gone missing the night before. They reached the fort, the wagons spread out along the eastern edge, and while half the wagon train rushed around in search of Tim, Charlie stole into the back of the wagon, opened his treasure chest, and scooped out a handful of jeweled bracelets and rings. He stuffed them into his jacket pocket, then high-tailed it to the fort’s supply depot as fast as he could.

  “How much for this washboard?”

  “Is this really the price of a sack of sugar?”

  “Do you have any more shotgun cartridges in the back somewhere?”

  The supply depot was as busy as a big city general store at Christmas by the time he arrived. Half the wagon train seemed to have gotten there before him, not to mention a few newcomers who were hanging around the fort for one reason or another. And there he was, over a thousand dollars in gems sitting in his pocket. What had he been thinking?

  “I’ll get to each of you in turn,” the harried shopkeeper—or quartermaster, or whatever the man was called in a remote outpost like this—said. Charlie took a step back and turned to go. “Can I help you with something, mister?” the man asked him. Apparently he had an eye for fine clothes and enough snobbery to attempt to serve him before the others.

  “Nothing that can’t wait for these fine folks here to transact their business first,” Charlie replied with a smile.

  “Thank you kindly, Mr. Garrett.” One of the women from the wagon train beamed at him.

  “Garrett?” a new voice said. New, and yet all too familiar. “Charlie Garrett?”

  Something hard and prickly grabbed hold of Charlie’s windpipe, making it difficult to breath.

  “Yes, that’s him,” the woman from the wagon said.

  Charlie swallowed, squared his shoulders, and touched the pocket where his jewelry rested. Then he braced himself and turned in the direction of the voice.

  There he was. After all this time. So much for avoiding the bastard by sneaking west along the Oregon Trail.

  He put on his best smile anyhow. “Chet Devlin, you old lion.”

  “Charlie Garrett.” Chet stepped clear of a shelf that had him half hidden. Tall, blond, the kind of man women found handsome. Wearing a suit as finely tailored as Charlie’s own. There he was. Dammit. “I bet you thought you’d never see me again,” Chet went on. “But I’ve got you now.”

  Chapter Eight

  Charlie laughed in spite of the acid that rose to the back of his throat. Anyone who didn’t know better would think Chet was teasing with a comment like that. Anyone who didn’t know.

  “Fancy the two of us crossing paths again like this,” Charlie said, edging toward the back of the supply depot. He had to get out, get away from the sudden crush of the walls closing in on him, the press of people with their curious eyes. The open door leading to the fort’s main yard was his only escape.

  “I bet you thought you’d never see me again.” Chet cut through the crowd to reach him, slapping him hard on the back. Even with his layers of clothing, the blow stung. “Thought you could out-smart me, didn’t you?” he added in a quieter voice.

  “You and I both know which one of us is the smarter of the two,” Charlie replied. Let his old friend make of that what he would.

  “Indeed we do.” Chet winked, his wide grin toothy.

  Charlie’s hand itched to dig into his pocket and protect the jewels he carried. One tiny peek at even the edge of a diamond and Chet would have everything he needed to shoot him in the back without impunity. He sidestepped toward the open depot door. “Come outside so I can get a better look at you. How long has it been?”

  “Well on eight months now,” Chet said, following him through the crowd of shoppers, nodding and tipping his hat to the ladies. He was pouring on the charm. That was never a good sign. “Ever since old Josiah Hurst died.”

  “God rest his soul.” Charlie stepped out into the Wyoming sunshine, his chest too tight to take in the deep breath that he needed to calm down.

  He could count the days and minutes since the last time he and Chet had seen each other. Likely Chet could too. They had parted ways in the doorway of Josiah’s lawyer’s office directly after the reading of the will. A will that had not contained what Chet had expected it to, and a reading that had set the clock ticking. Within an hour after parting ways with Chet eight months ago, Charlie had raced back to Josiah’s house, snatched what he could, and made himself scarce.

  All for nothing, it would seem. His hand twitched to protect the contents of his pocket.

  “So, the Oregon Trail, eh?” Chet’s question pushed Charlie out of his anxious memories. “I would have pegged you as the type to cash in your chips and board the next ship for Brazil or some such.”

  Which was exactly why Charlie hadn’t fled in that direction. The Oregon Trail was the last place Chet would have expected him to go.

  No, not the last, because here he was now.

  “I was in the mood for a leisurely adventure.” Charlie smiled, adjusting his hat in the hopes of drawing Chet’s eyes far away from his pocket. “Thought I’d build a new, quieter life out here in the great American West.”

  “So I see.” Chet thumped him on the arm the way a medieval knight would pat down his enemy, searching for a hidden dagger.

  “I’m more surprised to see you out here.” Charlie swayed away from him as subtly as he could. “All this wilderness?” He gestured to the wide, blue sky and the fort around them, again trying to divert Chet’s calculating gaze. “You’re much more of a city type.”

  Chet shrugged, slipping his hands into his pocket. The movement revealed a shiny, ivory-handled revolver tucked into his belt. Charlie took a slow, deep breath to steady the feeling that he’d reached the end of his rope.

  “Thought I’d get a look at this great country of ours before everyone back east rushes out here and changes it all. You never know what sort of business opportunities you might find so far from civilization.”

  Charlie narrowed his eyes. Meaning Ch
et had come out this way not only looking for him, but with the hope of running a con or two on pioneers without the hawk eye of the law breathing down his neck. It was brilliant, in a chilling sort of way.

  “I wouldn’t go looking for opportunities in Pete Evans’s wagon train if I were you,” Charlie began, attempting to sound casual as a strange, new feeling of protectiveness for his fellow travelers gripped him. “He won’t stand for it.”

  Chet surprised him by replying, “So I hear. I talked to a lot of folks, looking for the best way to follow opportunity out west. Everyone seems to agree that Pete Evans runs the most ambitious and eclectic wagon trains heading along the trail.”

  Which means, of course, that Chet had been looking for him intensely for months, had figured out he’d headed west, and that he’d joined Pete’s train.

  “I just had a chat with Mr. Evans myself,” Chet went on. “He’s agreed to let me travel on the rest of the way to Oregon City with his train.”

  Charlie’s heart froze, then dropped to his toes. “Did he?” It was not good. Right or wrong, there was hell to pay, and hell had just caught up to him.

  “Charlie? Who is this?”

  A second, worse sense of disaster and fear struck Charlie as Olivia joined the two of them. She practically glowed in the late morning sunlight, her hair in a loose braid down her back. Of all the times for her to look so tempting and lovely.

  “This is an old friend of mine.” He smiled as if he hadn’t a care in the world and rested a hand on the small of Olivia’s back as she stopped beside him. Really he wanted to pull her into his arms and shelter her from the storm that was about to break over all of them.

  “Oh?” She glanced up at him, easy and informal.

  “Chet Devlin, ma’am.” Chet stepped forward, hand extended, an expression of triumph in his eyes. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. And you are?”

  Olivia took Chet’s hand, unaware that she’d just grabbed a viper. “Olivia Wal—Garrett, Charlie’s wife.” Her smile was shy and her blush unbelievably becoming.