“Okay. Maybe I still backslide now and then,” she conceded.
His smile stretched broader and he released her arms. After a fractional hesitation, he started brushing the dust from her sleeves.
“So, why are you mad, Venice?” he asked, his hands working impersonally on her sleeves, lifting her bonnet from her head and blowing the dirt off. “Tell me.”
For some reason it didn’t seem odd that she was standing in the middle of a dirty street in a squalid town high in the mountains while Noble McCaneaghy—a man who until last night she hadn’t seen in ten years—dusted her off as casually as a nanny would her charge. And it didn’t seem in the least strange that she wanted to confide in him. She always had.
“It’s this town,” she said. “I want to help these people, but I can’t do anything for them if everyone remains determined to keep me in the dark.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“No one will tell me where Uncle Milton keeps his ledgers, or his account books, or anything.”
“Maybe they don’t know.”
“Not know?” she asked incredulously. “Noble, a rough estimate says that three-quarters of the townspeople ship their supplies up on that spur line. Someone, somewhere, has got to have an invoice for some of that freight.”
“Oh.”
“How long do they think I’m going to sit around waiting for the foundation ledgers? Do they think I’m just going to get tired and leave?”
“Maybe,” Noble mumbled, replacing her hat, standing back and scowling at it a second before readjusting the angle.
She put her hands on her hips and tapped her foot. “But you know what peeves me the most?”
“I’d say you were a mite more than peeved.”
“You’re right. You know what angers me the most? That these people think I’m so stupid that I’ll just go away if they don’t cooperate. If I really want answers, all I have to do is send one wire to the spur line office in Denver and the train stops running today.”
Noble dropped to his knees in front of her and caught her tapping foot. The laces had come undone. Deftly he began retying them. “Sounds like a typical Leiland tactic,” he said, his voice growing tight.
“They aren’t my tactics, Noble,” she said softly, her anger playing out as she noticed the way the sun glinted off his bowed head. A tingle started where his broad hands brushed the silk-clad skin above her boot.
“Aren’t they?” he murmured. He’d finished relacing her boot and for just a second his fingers lingered on her calf, a touch so near a caress that the breath caught in her lungs. He must have heard. He turned his head, looking up at her from where he knelt. His thick gleaming hair fell across most of his face. All she could see were his eyes, dark, intent.
With something that sounded like a muffled curse, he bolted upright. “Listen,” he said, “I don’t live in Salvage. I just wander through now and then.”
He was backing away, putting even more emotional distance between them. She took a step forward.
“Maybe you could help me, Noble.”
“I doubt it. I don’t even know why you’re so concerned about this town.”
“This town is the foundation’s responsibility. The foundation saw to that when it allowed the people to use the spur line for seven years.”
“You oughta talk to some of these other folks, not me. They know more about—”
“But they don’t know me. You do.”
“Do I?” The question was quiet.
“Yes. Please, Noble? Just talk to me?”
That stopped him. He looked around, like a trapped animal, his eyes finally coming back to her.
“Sure. Why not?” He sounded resigned. “What’s one conversation? Sure. I can do that.”
She smiled and was amazed when he seemed to flinch. Maybe he was still sore from falling off her balcony.
“I was gonna go eat breakfast at the Pay Dirt.”
“Wonderful. I, ah, I have to go back to my room.” She wasn’t going to tell him she had to go get some money. He’d insist he pay for her meal and she’d already surmised that Noble McCaneaghy didn’t have a dime to spare. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Okay,” he said. He turned around and started off toward the end of the street, muttering, “A conversation. Probably won’t take too long. What’s a little talk between old acquaintances?”
Apparently Noble, too, felt badly about last night. They’d once been the best of friends. Unwilling to analyze the pleasure that thought gave her, Venice clambered back up onto the walkway and hurried back toward the Gold Dust. A few men called to her, doffing crushed and stained hats as she passed, as gallant as any wealthy gentlemen. They might not be particularly clean, but they were the proudest dirty people Venice had ever met.
The thought brought her to a full stop. Salvage attracted a different sort of people; people uncomfortable with rules and regulations--and soap— flourished here.
They must be nigh on desperate to keep their peculiar paradise alive.
Small wonder they saw her as the enemy. And, she thoughtfully allowed, she’d given them every reason to, rushing in, demanding ledgers and inventories like any accountant before he closed the door on a business.
But she would prove she wasn’t uncaring or unsympathetic . . . to Salvage and Noble.
She was so deeply engrossed in her thoughts that she didn’t notice Tim Gilpin until she was beside him. He was nailing handbills on a front wall.
“Why, Miss Leiland!” Tim said happily. “I heard you had a spot of excitement last night.”
There was that word again. “You’re not going to write that I set the confounded place on fire in order to indulge my purportedly warped need for adventure, are you?” Venice asked suspiciously.
Tim chuckled. “Good heavens, I wouldn’t consider doing such a thing.”
Venice relaxed. “What are these?” She pointed to the flyers in his hand.
Tim fidgeted, kicking a pebble around with his toe. “Well, I have to earn enough to keep the newspaper afloat,” he said, “and if someone pays me to run off a few handbills and nail them up around town, I can’t afford to let easy money slip through my fingers. I have to—”
Impatiently, Venice sidestepped the editor and read the advertisement:
SINNERS!
FLORITA DEVORES, THERESA MERRY TERRY AITKENS,
AND
MADEMOISELLE “FIFI” LA PALMA
WILL SPEAK, IN DETAIL, ON THE SUBJECT OF THEIR
FALL FROM GRACE, TRANSGRESSIONS, MULTITUDINOUS
SINS, DEPRAVITIES AND ADDICTIONS
TONIGHT!!!! 8:00 SHARP.
DONATIONS TAKEN AT PAY DIRT SALOON
BY REVEREND CARL NISS.
SALVATION ALSO DISCUSSED.
Venice frowned, perplexed. “A revival meeting?”
“Yeah,” Tim mumbled.
“You know, I’ve never been to a revival meeting—”
“You don’t want to go to this meeting, Miss Leiland.”
Venice shrugged. “I expect I’ll pass. I don’t go out much in the evenings. Regardless of what the press thinks.” She smiled at him teasingly “I’ll be seeing you at tomorrow evening’s party?”
“Yes, ma’am. You can count on it, Miss Leiland.”
She had nearly reached the end of the boardwalk when she heard her voice being called.
“Miz Leiland!”
She turned. Her polite smile froze on her face. The Salvage Ladies’ Conviviality League was approaching. There were six of them, marching.
Courage, she told herself. “Ladies?”
A pretty girl, her upturned nose dusted with freckles, stepped hesitantly forward.
“Er, Miz Leiland,” the girl said, “my name is Suzanne Gates, ma’am. The Salvage Ladies’ Conviviality League has made me, ah, asked me to, that is, most of the guild—”
“All of the guild ‘cept Agnes Dupre!” a voice averred loudly from behind the stammering girl.
�
��All the guild,” Suzanne continued, her voice gaining volume and certainty, “ ‘cept Agnes Dupre, what penned that note to you in the first place, without checkin’ with us other league members, wants to apologize fer that note.”
The ladies behind the girl nodded vigorously in agreement.
“You do?” asked Venice in amazement.
“Yup. We does. And we know this is forward and all, but we’d be real grateful if you would sorta let us reconsider your kind invite to that party yer givin’ tomorrow night, so we could come.”
“Realize it ain’t very well done of us,” another woman said, stepping forward. “But we sorta got roped into taking a stand before we even knew it. Agnes jes’ kinda took fer granted none of us would want to, well, you know.”
Venice’s pleasure dimmed. “All of the ladies of Salvage are invited. And I do mean all. Including any . . . boarders at the saloons in town.”
“Yes’m,” Suzanne Gates said, clearly abashed. “We understand. We won’t cause no one no reason to take offense. Sake’s alive, ma’am, we ain’t been to a party, a real party, never! Not a one of us plans to waste time actin’ all hoity-toity when we could be dancin’.”
Venice allowed her delight to take firmer hold. “Well, I’d be delighted to have the Convivial Ladies accept my invitation.”
The five other ladies stepped forward. “Now that that’s settled, what can we do to help?”
“Do?” Venice asked. She had taken care of most of the arrangements before her arrival. The next spur line run would be carrying supplies for the party.
“Yeah, do,” a big raw-boned girl said. “What can we bring? I got a couple of crocks of bread n’ butter pickles I saved from last summer.”
“I got a good couple gallons of buttermilk,” another woman said. “I kin get at least forty, fifty dozen biscuits outta that.”
“Me and my sisters can make a mess of pies,” someone else chimed in.
Overwhelmed by the offers, Venice threw up her hands, laughing. “Whatever you ladies would be so gracious to offer, I would be only too happy to receive.”
“Sakes, no one’s gonna get any biscuits if I stand here all day!”
In a flurry of excitement, the ladies scurried off, happily bemoaning the time they didn’t have and the things they had to do. Within five minutes, only Suzanne Gates was left, gazing wistfully at Venice.
“Is there anything else?” Venice asked gently.
“No.” The girl blushed prettily. “I was jes’ admiring yer dress. It sure is pretty”
Venice looked down at the shimmering, gem-colored skirts. Her gaze traveled to Suzanne’s worn, sun-bleached calico.
“Would you, would you like to bor—” Venice stuttered to a stop. She didn’t want to offend the young Miss Gates. How did one make such an offer? Should one make such an offer?
“Could I?” Suzanne exclaimed, bouncing up and down on her toes. “I would rightly love to borrow one of yer dresses, Miz Leiland. If I could wear one of yer gowns, that skinny Blaine Farley would stop twitchin’ my hair like it was still in pigtails!”
“Miss Gates,” she said, “you come to my room at the Gold Dust Emporium tomorrow evening at seven o’clock and we’ll deck you out in the loveliest gown in my wardrobe. If Blaine Farley twitches your pigtail after that, he isn’t worthy of the title male.”
Suzanne blushed and beamed. Venice gave her a conspiratorial wink and turned her gently, pushing her forward. “Go on, now. And remember, seven o’clock.”
“Yes, ma’am!” the girl promised and quickly scooted off. Venice smiled after her retreating figure, fairly dancing over the plank boards. It must be wonderful to have a special man who made you feel so special, so aware, so . . .
She pushed the treacherous notion away and with it Noble McCaneaghy’s golden-eyed image.
Chapter 8
Noble didn’t have to look up to tell Venice Leiland had just entered the room. Only the odd, rich, and deucedly pretty Venice Leiland would invoke absolute and concentrated silence.
Noble placed his knife and fork down on either side of the plate. He kept his gaze fixed on the slabs of half-charred meat and steaming potatoes. She’d taken so long, he’d begun to hope she had decided not to join him.
That little scene outside had shaken him. He’d reacted automatically, out of long-forgotten habit. And it had seemed so harmless: straightening her hat, dusting her off, tying her boot . . .
That was his mistake. He’d touched her slender calf and felt the silken warm texture of her, even through that damned stocking, and gone as hot and hard as a randy sixteen-year-old. He’d looked up into those mist-colored eyes of hers and felt as though he were drowning.
She scared the hell out of him.
The chair beside him scraped the rough floor planks and a russet-striped skirt switched against his denim-clad leg.
“Noble?” She sounded a tad hesitant.
There was nothing to do but get this over with. He looked up. Every man in the room had turned his avid interest toward the table where Noble and Venice sat. Maybe he should just rent the damn stage over at the Empress Theater and sell tickets. “Eat, you pack of hairy, skin-shanked, flea-ridden sons of bitches!” Noble barked.
The men hurriedly returned their attention to their food, but their eyes kept sliding back toward Venice. Not that he could blame them, Noble thought when he finally allowed himself the pleasure of looking at her. She was every man’s dream of womanhood.
Fine resolutions you make, boyo. Here you are not only staring at her like she’s a tender yearling and you’re a starved wolf, but you’re ready to leap over the table and haul her back into your arms.
“I’m sorry,” Noble mumbled.
“Excuse me?” she said.
“I’m sorry for—” Noble looked around. Every head in the room was tilted in their direction. He lowered his voice. “I’m sorry for my less than chivalrous behavior last evening. It seems in my relief in finding you safe, I transgressed certain common laws of decency.”
Venice was staring at him, wide-eyed. Such perfectly gray eyes, such curling black lashes. Mentally, Noble shook himself and hurried on. “I assure you it shan’t happen again.”
“What happened to your accent?”
Accent? For a moment, Noble was confused. “I went to college. Remember? You ought to remember; your daddy paid for most of it.”
That was not strictly true. Trevor had paid for the year before he was drafted into the Union Army. When he came back, his own sweaty manual labor had paid for his degree.
“But as your friend Cassius Reed will tell you, you can’t whitewash a piece of no-account trash. I’m no more ‘college’ than you are ‘Colorado.’ Just amuses me sometimes to remember the good ol’ days.”
Damn it. Some apology. Her lovely face had paled.
“You don’t know what I am, or am not, Noble,” she said. “You weren’t there, remember? As a matter of fact, I’ve been in the Rocky Mountains several times in the past years. I spent two months with Uncle Milton in the dunes area south of here.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No, I’m not. I’ve spent a season on the Amazon, too. I . . . I’ve seen so many fascinating things. I just hope I get the opportunity to see more someday.”
She sounded so wistful. She noticed his expression and smiled. “You needn’t look so shocked,” she said. “You might recall that I never did particularly like living in the city.”
“That’s true.” He leaned back in his chair, relaxing slightly. “You were always begging me to take you camping in Central Park.”
She smiled. “And you never would. I suppose no one would let you.”
He chuckled. “Reason I never took you was that I hadn’t the first notion how to set up a tent.”
Her eyes sparkled. “You’re kidding.”
He held up one hand. “It’s true. Think of it, Venice. I was a sixteen-year-old kid from the Lower East Side. How was I supposed to know how to camp?”
“But you always said that before your father went to fight in the Crimean War your family lived on a little farm in northern Ireland.”
“True. But I was four, Venice. We immigrated the year after my father died. I didn’t do a whole lot of camping before we came to America.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“And fall off that pedestal you had me on?” He snorted. “Hardly likely. I rather liked being idolized.”
She laughed. “Charlatan!”
“Yeah. Well, adulation was sort of addictive.”
“Humph.”
“You worshiped the ground I walked on.”
Somewhere in the past ten years she’d acquired a dimple. It was the most damnably provocative thing he’d ever seen. He wondered how many other men thought so too. “But by now you’ve probably had lots more experience as the adored rather than the adorer,” he said.
Her smile lost some of its brilliance.
“I’m sorry,” he said, feeling like a louse. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
“I, too, am sorry” she said softly.
He cocked his head, bewildered.
“I’m sorry if my behavior yesterday led you to believe I was a . . . well, you know.”
He didn’t help her. Couldn’t help her.
“My appreciation for your appearance,” she said with a gulp, “was spontaneous. I have never done anything like that before. You can rest assured, any future impulses shall be acted on only after due consideration.”
The speech came tumbling out in a rush. Noble snorted in response to the breathless self-indictment.
“I seriously doubt the Venice Leiland I knew could ever hold off doing something till she’d given it ‘due consideration.’”
“Too true, Noble. Maybe I better stick to making promises I can keep.” She bit her lip. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to belabor the point.”
It took him a second to realize that she was referring to the promise he’d broken ten years ago. For the first time, he realized just how much of a betrayal his leaving must have seemed to her.
Of course, she didn’t know all the circumstances. He was certain of that. His lips flattened.
Connie Brockway Page 9