"Besides," she added with a touch of sadness in her voice. "It doesn't matter who we marry now, because I'll never love anybody but Billy, and Hannah feels the same about Loland."
Jaime said doubtfully, "Well, I can understand how you both feel, but I'm not sure I could do it."
"Come on," Ella urged, "I thought you were willing to do anything to get to California."
"But marriage? To someone I don't love? A stranger?"
"It wouldn't be for long. You could just slip away and go find your father. Do you even know where to start looking?"
"I know where he mailed his last letter from, and I know the name of the man he was going to do business with. He said the man was rich and prominent, so I don't guess I'd have any trouble finding him. But..." She fell silent for a moment, then shook her head. "I couldn't do that. I couldn't marry a man, take his money, let him pay my way out there, and then leave him. It wouldn't be right."
"Listen, those men have so much gold they can afford it, but can you afford not to? Can you afford to stay here and waste your whole life slaving for those two old women?"
"But to deliberately swindle somebody, Ella? It's not right."
"Oh, you can make sure he gets his money's worth by the time you get out there. It's no more than what he'd pay for a harlot, probably. Believe me, there's no reason to feel guilty about it. I'll bet it happens all the time."
"Wait a minute," Jaime said. "I thought the marriage took place in California, that the men out there send for wives to meet them there. What's this about him getting his money's worth before I get out there? I'm confused."
"Listen, this is different. I heard just last night there's a man right here in Kansas City who's come all the way from the goldfields to find himself a wife. His name is Austin, and he's staying at Dewar's Hotel, near the river."
She rushed to explain. "To be honest, I thought about going to see him myself. I swear, I've got to get out of here and start a new life somewhere else, before I go crazy. Too many things remind me of Billy and all the dreams we had. But Hannah and I vowed to stay together and try to marry brothers or mining partners, so we can live close to each other. I wasn't about to abandon her and go see that man at the hotel.
"But you can do it, Jaime." Ella suddenly exploded with her enthusiasm. "Go see him and tell him you'll marry him. What if it is sort of like being a prostitute? If it gets you to California so you can find your father, what difference does it make? You can forget it ever happened, pretend you were never married. Who's to know?"
Jaime gave a bitter laugh. "What makes you think he'd have me?"
"You're pretty, despite those drab clothes your aunt makes you wear. As for me and Hannah, our future husbands won't see us till we get there, and then they're stuck with us. Besides, we're also getting a pig in the poke, as the saying goes, 'cause we don't know what they look like either."
With an impish grin, Ella pulled a strand of Jaime's hair from her tightly wound bun and declared, "Look. It's even the color of gold. I think it's an omen. I think you were meant to go to California."
Jaime shivered. "I don't know. It's scary."
"With you in a fancy dress and your hair fixed nice and some color on your cheeks, that man will jump at the chance to marry you."
Jaime was starting to feel sick to her stomach. "But I don't think I could stand having a man touch me if I didn't love him."
Ella couldn't resist laughing. "You wouldn't even know how a man touches a woman if Hannah hadn't told you about her and Loland. And it didn't sound so terrible. Not to me, anyway."
"It was different for you. You were in love with Billy. You wouldn't have cared what he did to you."
Ella released her hands and placed them on her shoulders. "Listen to me. When you go to bed with him, just close your eyes and pretend it's not happening. Six months from now, you'll be in California with your father, and you won't ever have to look back. Go see Mr. Austin. Tonight."
Things were happening too fast. Jaime did not feel she could make such an important decision so quickly.
Ella sensed her thoughts. "There's not much time. There's only one more wagon train leaving Independence this spring."
Jaime didn't speak.
"Me and Hannah are going, if they'll let us sign on as brides for California. We're going to see about it tomorrow."
Jaime knew she meant it.
And she also knew there was no one she could turn to once they left.
Chapter 2
Cord Austin downed the last of his whiskey. Leaning back in his chair, he yawned and stretched his muscular arms skyward. His fringed buckskin shirt strained across a broad, rock-hard chest.
Sitting opposite, swallowed within a blue haze of smoke, Pete Rowland also tossed down his drink. Beads of perspiration stood out on his furrowed brow as he gestured impatiently and snapped, "Well, get on with it, Austin."
Cord looked at his stack of poker chips, which had grown steadily through the night. Pete had lost his stake and for the past hour had been running up quite a debt. Cord knew a man didn't like to quit when he was losing, but the way things were going, Pete's luck wasn't likely to change, and it was nearly two in the morning.
Cord was holding a flush, ace high, and figured Pete was betting on three of a kind. He decided to go easy on him. "I'll stand."
Pete's face lit up in a triumphant grin, confident, at last, he had a winning hand, since Cord had not previously failed to ante up when he held the better cards. "Well, I'm gonna raise you fifty."
Cord suppressed a groan. He didn't want to take any more of his money, but Pete was too stubborn to realize it. "Listen, you're already down to me nearly a thousand, Rowland. Call this hand, and let's quit."
Pete's grin changed to an angry grimace. "Hell, no. I ain't lettin' you do that. When it's my turn, I call if I want to, and we'll quit when I say. That's the code when a man is down. You got to give him a chance to win his money back."
The crowd of onlookers shifted uncomfortably. They knew little about Cord Austin, only that he had arrived in Kansas City a few days earlier and was said to be involved somehow with the next California-bound wagon train out of Independence. Some guessed he was a hired gun; others figured him to be a scout. Nobody knew for sure what his business was, but everyone agreed there was something about him that warned them to keep out of it. However, watching the marathon poker game between him and Pete had been too good to pass up, because Pete played for high stakes and seldom lost.
Cord's eyes narrowed. Instinctively, he knew Pete was the sort whose temper would get him killed one day—but not today, if Cord could avoid it. Long ago, he had promised himself when he sent a man to glory it would be for a more important reason than an argument over a card game.
With a resigned nod of assent, he flipped a few chips to the center of the table. "Call."
He fanned out his cards, exposing his hand.
Laughter exploded as everyone realized not only that Pete had lost another hand but this time Austin had tried to go easy on him, only Pete had been too dumb to know it.
Pete locked eyes with Cord. For one frozen instant, Pete was tempted to accuse him of cheating, but he knew Cord hadn't been and decided not to risk a gun-fight. Something told him the stranger's luck wasn't limited to cards. Finally, he conceded. "Well, looks like tonight's your night."
The sudden cloak of tension had silenced the laughter of the crowd, and they had begun to back away from the table. Now a few men exchanged relieved glances.
"You say I owe you a thousand?"
Cord nodded. "Any time in the next few days will be all right." He stood.
Pete held up a hand, the play of a mysterious smile on his lips. "Wait a minute. Maybe we can make a deal."
"Deals are what got you in debt," Cord reminded with a crooked grin.
Pete again bit back his rising temper. "I hear you just come from out west. I'll bet you're tired of ruttin' with squaws. How would you like to bed down with a real woman? Five hund
red off my debt will give you the wildest night you ever had." He looked to the others to back him up. "Tell him, boys. Francie is the sweetest little piece of woman flesh in these parts. A real tiger. Worth every bit of five hundred, ain't she?"
One of them cracked, "Hell, ain't none of us ever been able to afford her, but if you say she's worth it, she probably is."
Pete winked. "She's worth it."
Cord shoved his chair under the table and said with finality, "I'm not interested."
He turned and walked out of the saloon and into the hotel lobby. The desk clerk was nowhere around, and he decided any messages could wait till morning. Heading for the stairs, he could feel Pete Rowland's angry glare following him.
Once in his room, he fired up the lantern, then stripped off the buckskin shirt. It was a warm night, and he opened the window wide before pouring himself one last drink from the bottle on the bedside table.
He had been too busy since arriving from California for pleasures of the flesh, but he didn't figure any woman was worth five hundred dollars.
Staring out on the shadowed, deserted street, Cord thought about the rough journey ahead. He was none too excited about herding a bunch of females all the way across the country, but he was being well paid for the trouble. Unmarried women were real scarce in California, and the man paying him kept his workmen happy by providing either wives or whores.
Wives.
Cord's soft chuckle broke the stillness of the night around him. He figured the only thing worse for a man than marriage itself was getting tied up legal to a woman he hadn't met or laid eyes on till their wedding day. The men he was delivering to, however, had different ideas. A firm-feeling woman they could touch in the night, hot cooked meals, a clean hut or cabin, and somebody to bear their children, that's all they cared about.
Love played no part in it.
Not that Cord gave a damn about love anyway. That's what had killed his father, leaving Cord an orphan, which led to his being abducted and raised by Apaches.
Bile rose in his throat at the memory.
Like so many others, Matthew Austin had taken his family and joined the mad rush to California to "see the elephant," which meant a man was heading for the goldfields. Cord was only six years old at the time, but every detail of that ill-fated journey was branded on his soul.
Because they never made it.
Halfway across Arizona, his mother had suddenly become ill and died. His father refused to continue, saying he was going to take her body back east for burial. The others in the wagon train went on without them.
Two weeks later, after following the trail in a drunken stupor borne of his sorrow, Matthew Austin went to sleep one night and just didn't wake up. Cord, alone and terrified, could do nothing but sit beside his parents' bodies and watch the vultures circling overhead.
He was near death himself when the Apaches found him. He could remember, with revulsion, how they had stripped his parents' bodies. Then, with him kicking and screaming, fighting hopelessly with all his might, they took him along with the wagon and horses.
Thus had begun his life with the Apaches.
But despite the bad memories, Cord knew he had come out of the experience a better man. During the war, he'd worked as a scout, due to his knowledge of wilderness survival, and there were several times he would have been killed except for what the Indians had taught him. But never, during those terrible years of his youth, did Cord ever forget he was white, and he dreamed of returning to his people.
Rescue came just before he was to endure the test to become a warrior, the year he turned twelve. He was following a group of braves out hunting, with orders to clean and carry back anything they killed, when their party was surprised by a cavalry attack. One of the officers noticed Cord was white, and he was spared from being massacred along with the others.
At the settlement where he was taken, a parson and his schoolteacher wife took him in. There he was ostracized by the other children, an object of ridicule and scorn. When he dared fight back, the parson would drag him out behind the outhouse, yank down his pants, and proceed to paddle Cord's backside till he drew blood, while he swore to beat the savage out of him.
Cord figured he lasted maybe a month there, till one day he could stand it no longer. The parson had taken a whip to him on that occasion, because he'd dared punch some kid for pushing him down in a mud puddle and calling him a stinking Indian dog. When the whip cut into his cheek, leaving a scar he still carried, he had caught the leather strip in his hand, jerking it right out of the parson's hands. He thought about raising a few welts on him, but his wife had appeared about that time to cry for mercy, so he had relented. Stealing the parson's horse, he ran away.
A loner, fending for himself in the years following, Cord had roamed the West and learned more of its secrets. When the War Between the States broke out, he sided with the Union. The prejudice and injustice suffered at the settlement school had left him with a deep respect for the freedom of all mankind, and he was willing to take a stand for it.
There had been women along the way, but Cord had kept a tight rein on his heart. If the lady of the evening hinted at anything to do with love, he was always honest, promising no more than the pleasure of the moment. More than that he would not, could not, give.
The image of his father drinking himself to death beside the body of his mother, as he cried out over and over how much he loved her, was firmly entrenched.
Love had made his father weak and had ultimately destroyed him.
Cord vowed it would never happen to him.
Shaking away the cobwebs of the past, Cord set aside the rest of his drink and lay down across the bed.
Maybe, he decided drowsily, if Pete's offer for the woman was still good tomorrow, he'd take him up on it. It would be nice to have a woman to love, if only for a little while.
Sometimes the nights could get real long... and lonely.
* * *
Almost entirely hidden from view behind a large potted plant, Jaime waited in the lobby.
It was a terrible time, she knew, to be offering herself for marriage, especially to a man she had never met, but the desk clerk had told her Mr. Austin was playing cards in the saloon and he didn't dare interrupt. Certainly, she was not about to approach him herself, not in there, so all she could do was wait for him to come out.
It had been nearly ten o'clock when she arrived. She'd had to clean up after her aunt's party, then pretend to go to bed and wait awhile before sneaking out of the house. Running all the way back to be dressed up by Ella and Hannah, she had then gone to the hotel.
She was still uncertain about the way she looked. The gown Ella had sneaked out of the laundry for her to borrow for the night was gaudy, a bright green satin with bodice cut so low her breasts were practically spilling out. But both the girls had waved away her protests, saying she had to make Mr. Austin sit up and take notice from the first instant they met.
Jaime thought of the miserable evening just past, with everyone else celebrating her aunt's announcement that she was going to marry Mr. Slawson. The Rupert sisters bragged about how they would soon be the new owners of the boardinghouse and began ordering Jaime around as though they already were, treating her like the slave they intended her to be.
But worst of all was the arrival and introduction of the Ruperts' nephew, Howard. He had taken one look at Jaime and become her shadow, which provoked teasing remarks from everyone there. Jaime had recounted it all to Ella and Hannah, and they insisted it was another reason to make a good impression on Mr. Austin—so she could escape the boardinghouse.
Finally, when they were done with her, Jaime had looked at herself in the mirror, only to gasp, "Why, it doesn't even look like me!"
Ella cried, "See? We told you what a real beauty you are."
Well, if the desk clerk's reaction had been an indicator, Jaime decided maybe she was pretty, after all, because he had actually stammered as he spoke to her, his eyes flicking over her app
reciatively.
He had promised to keep watch for Mr. Austin to come out of the saloon, so he could introduce her, but the night wore on and he failed to appear. Then the clerk politely told her he was going to his own quarters for a late supper but would return soon. "If the game has lasted this long," he advised, "it's likely it could go on till dawn. You sure you want to wait, little lady?"
She nodded her head but knew she could not stay much longer. Hie dress had to go back on the rack by the time the laundry opened.
Only one man had come out of the saloon and gone upstairs. She had instinctively drawn back in her seat as he passed, for there was an air about him that was almost frightening in its intensity. Yet something told her it was more an aura of power rather than threat.
He was big, tall, with broad shoulders, and his open buckskin shirt revealed a muscular chest. She caught a glimpse of dark eyes and blue-black hair, and a face that was ruggedly appealing. His breeches looked to be made of doeskin, and they were tight, covering large muscular thighs.
As he ascended the steps, Jaime, with a wicked smile, could not help thinking he had nice buttocks, firm and well shaped.
He took the steps two at a time. She watched him until he was out of sight, then leaned back once more to wait.
Right after he had passed, however, two men came out of the saloon. One of them, she noted, had a very angry expression on his face as he looked in the direction of the man she had been watching. Curious, she listened as they talked.
"You think Austin was cheating, Pete?"
"Could be, but I wasn't about to say so. I got an idea he can use that gun he totes, and the way I see it, a thousand dollars ain't worth dying for. I'll pay it, but I don't mind telling you I'll be glad to see him leave town."
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