Midnight Lover (19 page)

"How fascinating," she drawled, "for I was about to say the same thing to you. Perhaps we should save our arguments for the circuit judge."

"Nearly two weeks until he comes ridin' into town and two weeks can seem like a real long time when a body ain't welcome. Think you'll last that long?"

"Oh, I'll last, Mr. Reardon. The question is: will you?"

With that she took a deep breath and slid from the saddle to the ground. He reached into the leather pouch dangling from the pommel and extracted a pile of coins loosely wrapped in a white handkerchief.

"Here." He tossed the bundle down to her. "Fifty dollars, more or less. Don't go tellin' nobody I ain't a man of my word."

"Better late than never, Mr. Reardon." Her mind raced with excitement she dared not let him see. "Perhaps next time you'll consider your bets more wisely."

Head held high, she strolled regally into the Crazy Arrow Saloon and never once did she acknowledge that Jesse Reardon's language could cause a marble statue to blush.

#

Jade hid deep in the mine until the echo of Diablo's hooves faded. Only then did she dare slip out the back entrance that let out behind the hill where she'd left her trap and two white horses.

Quickly she stripped off the scratchy woolen duster and oversized wide-brimmed hat that her accomplice wore when he was playing the crazy prospector and hid them once again behind the outcropping of rocks and brush that cleverly concealed the mine opening from view. She hadn't needed the disguise for Jesse and that gal from Boston had been right easy to spook. All it had taken was a few loose rocks clattering to the ground to send them racing out of the dark tunnel as if Lucifer himself were on their tails.

She owed Old Tom a bigger cut off the next haul for telling her Jesse was headed out to show the mine to Aaron's daughter. If they'd continued just a few more yards they damn might have stumbled past the barrier and come upon the stash of gold bullion that was going to set her and Jesse up like Mexican royalty not too long from now. Just a couple more stagecoaches on their way to San Francisco and she'd be sitting pretty on top of enough money to keep them in clover until their hair was as silver as the ore that had put Silver Spur on the map. Another stage was due to go through tomorrow morning and she and her accomplices would be waiting.

If everything went as planned, by year's end she'd be able to leave Silver Spur far behind. She'd come too far to stop when she was this close. All the hot nights she'd spent sweating beneath the hands of the white man, the intense poverty of her childhood, the brutality—finally she would beat them at their own game.

She sighed and unpinned her heavy black hair which had been jammed under the hat. The dark strands fell around her shoulders and down her back and she prayed for a breeze to move the blistering air. The waistband of her emerald green dress was soaked with sweat and she wished she were back at the Golden Dragon, naked and cool in her huge marble tub with Jesse stretched out and waiting on her red satin sheets.

Only Jesse was different.

Only Jesse eased her body and soothed her soul.

Soon, she thought as she climbed into her carriage. Soon it would be just her and Jesse with no more little misses from Boston to cause her heartache.

Not that this blond haired gal was any competition—hellfire, if the gal had anything going for her, Jesse would've used the darkness of the mine to full advantage. Jade's body burned just thinking about the things he could have done to make that gal's blue eyes open wide with surprise. As it was, little Miss Caroline Bennett had been as pure coming out of the mine as she'd been going in and Jade had to laugh that for all her high-falutin' ways, that Boston gal wasn't woman enough to tempt a man like Jesse Reardon.

In a way that notion was as good as gold to Jade.

#

"And this is a fine how-do-you-do!" Abby exclaimed the moment Caroline came through the door of the Crazy Arrow, clutching the handkerchief filled with coins. "Here we sit worryin' ourselves to tears wonderin' where you be and you come ridin' up, fine as you please, in the arms of the Devil himself, lookin' too happy for my liking!"

"Oh, hush up, Abby," Caroline snapped as the door closed behind her, "before I send you across the street to work at the Golden Dragon."

"And I'd be thinkin' that's a fine idea." Abby's hazel eyes fairly snapped with outrage. "I been hearin' tales that she be payin' better than what I been used to, what with the beds there not even slept in."

Caroline was framing a suitably caustic response when she caught the sounds of crying coming from the parlour. "What on earth is going on?"

"You'd be knowin' if you were here where you're supposed to be." She narrowed her eyes at Caroline. "And what is that you're holdin'?"

"None of your business." Quickly she stashed the pouch of coins into the top drawer of the desk in the hallway.

"I don't hold with all these secrets."

"I am not in need of a nineteen year old mother, Abigail O'Brien, and I'll thank you to keep your comments to yourself. Now tell me what the uproar is all about and save your lecture for another time."

"I'll tell you what the uproar is," said Margaret McGuigan from the doorway, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen. "We just seen our futures swept right out from under us by those woman-hating, filthy drunkards, that's what."

Caroline swept into the parlour and found herself staring down into the eyes of a baker's-dozen spinsters who looked as if their hopes had shattered like wedding china tumbling from a mantel. There were the four McGuigan girls, the two Wilder sisters, and seven other young women who were crying loud enough to be heard back in Boston.

"Would somebody please explain what on earth is going on?"

Sarah Wilder dabbed at her eyes with the edge of a cotton kerchief and sniffed audibly. "Margaret told you the whole thing in a nutshell. Those—those monsters came right into Aunt Sally's and upended the tables and before we knew it we were out on the street with our stomachs empty and our pocketbooks lighter."

"That's unconscionable," said Caroline, pacing the length of the room. "How dare they deprive you of services already paid for."

Sarah's sister, Jenny, turned away from the window and met Caroline's eyes. "I think you're missin' the point, Caroline, if you don't mind me sayin' so. It ain't the meal that's upsetting us."

Caroline stopped and faced Jenny. "If it's not the meal, then what is it?"

"The League," said Jenny.

"League?" Caroline turned toward Abby whose freckled face was impassive. "What League?"

"The Single Man's Protective League."

"And what, pray tell, is the Single Man's Protective League?"

"They got themselves a big money wager," said Margaret while the others nodded. "Ain't a one of 'em going to marry before year's end or pay the piper for the privilege."

Caroline forced a laugh. "Very amusing, ladies, but this is not the time for humor."

"Ain't nothin' humorous about it," said Margaret, "not if you're lookin' to set up housekeeping one day with a husband and a family to call your own."

How foreign those notions were to Caroline but how very real the girl's distress. "Since when do single men find it necessary to form a league to proclaim their bachelorhood?" She rested a hand atop Sarah Wilder's shiny red hair and winked at Margaret McGuigan. "Surely someone is pulling your leg."

To her surprise, Sarah shook off her hand and looked up with huge, tear-stained blue eyes. "Too many weddings, they said, and they're drawin' the line on 'em now." Caroline started to protest but the girl hushed her with a fierce scowl. "We heard them with our very own ears, just as plain as the nose on your face."

"How absurd," said Caroline, biting back a smile at the confusing picture the girl's words painted. "Times are changing. Only a fool wouldn't recognize the coming of progress. The day is coming when men will live by their wits and not their Winchesters."

"Ain't progress they're afraid of," Jenny Wilder piped up. "It's marriage."

Caroline started to laugh. "And they find it necessary to band together in order to protect their lack of will power?"

"They want us out of town, that's what," cried Margaret, "and you're the reason."

"But I'm probably the only woman in town who isn't looking for a husband."

"Don't matter none," said Margaret. "They said they ain't going to let no eastern woman come in and take over one of their saloons and if Jesse Reardon won't do nothin' about it, they'd take matters into their own hands."

"And take away our chances for matrimony," said Sarah Wilder. "They cancelled the dances and the socials and they said there'd be no more courtin' only trips to—" She gestured toward the Golden Dragon across the street and the volume of sobbing increased twofold.

Caroline moved toward Abby. Motioning toward the cluster of sobbing spinsters on the divan in the corner of the parlor, she whispered, "And who, may I ask, are those girls?"

"Sue Ellen Watson and her sister Emma, the Dennehy girls, and Lulu Olsen and her cousin Annabelle. Threw them out of the boarding house, they did," offered Abby, her voice high with righteous indignation. "The curs tossed their hats and furbelows out the windows and used their petticoats to rub down their horses!"

"My tr-trousseau," sobbed the prettiest of the group on the divan. "I was going to wear my satin petticoat with the pink ribbons on my we-wedding day and now it's ruined, all filthy and sweaty from some terrible horse."

Caroline's eyes narrowed as rage once again took hold inside her breast. "Ladies, answer me honestly: did you do anything to antagonize the men?" God knew, the men of Silver Spur were a lawless group and it wouldn't take much to turn them into an angry mob.

"Mindin' their own business, they were," said Abby, bristling. "'Is it a crime to want a hot meal to help you get through the day?"

Sarah Wilder blew her nose then looked sorrowfully at Caroline. "Ain't the hot meal that's the problem," she said. "It's us being here at all. They want us to leave town."

"Absurd," said Caroline. "This is a free country. You can stay anywhere you like."

"Not in Silver Spur," sniffed Margaret McGuigan. "Now that they've closed up The Last Stop and the boarding house, there ain't no place a decent woman can rest herself."

"Rubbish!" Caroline snapped her fingers. "You girls are strong and healthy. What on earth do you need with a group of pathetic old prospectors? Seems to me you could do much better."

Next to her, Abby cleared her throat. "They wouldn't all be old prospectors, miss, if you don't mind me sayin' so. Sam Markham is a—"

"I know who Sam Markham is," Caroline interrupted. "I will not have you consorting with the bartender of the King of Hearts Saloon." That was all she needed, to be seen giving aid and comfort to the enemy camp.

Abby's hazel eyes glittered with defiance. "Slavery's over, miss."

Where on earth had Caroline heard those very words before? Ah, yes—the infamous day she arrived in Silver Spur and Jesse Reardon stabbed her with his knife-sharp observations. The other girls were watching Caroline and Abby intently.

"We'll speak about this later," Caroline said, turning back to the others. "Right now I think we should put a stop to this nonsense once and for all." Turning, she headed toward the door.

Jenny Wilder's voice stopped Caroline in her tracks. "Fine for you to talk so high and mighty about it; you ain't lookin' for a husband. You got a roof over your head and your own things about you already."

"And so do you," Caroline protested. "Each and every one of you has a home here at the Arrow if she wants it." God only knew, that fifty dollars she'd tucked away in the desk drawer a few minutes ago would serve them well for a time.

Margaret McGuigan lifted her chin. "My sisters and me ain't reduced to taking charity, thank you."

"I am not in any position to offer charity, Margaret, no matter how dearly I wish I were. What I am suggesting is an arrangement that would be mutually beneficial." She turned toward her original boarders. "What would you say to having some paying customers at the Crazy Arrow? Customers who will pay to stay here and have us take care of them. I could even offer you a salary."

They looked at her, wide-eyed.

"This is just the beginning," she said, growing excited at the prospect. "Word spreads like wildfire in this town; it won't be long before our rooms are filled with girls looking for a safe and clean place to live while they carve a place for themselves out west."

"We'd pay what we was payin' at the boarding house," volunteered one of the new girls. "Even kick in our meal money if you can provide food."

Abby nodded at Caroline. "Between us, we could be keepin' the wolf from the door."

"Ain't nothin' wrong with this place a little more elbow grease wouldn't cure," said Jenny Wilder knowingly. "Look what we done already."

"We'd be forever in your debt, Miz Caroline," said the oldest of the Dennehy girls perched upon the divan. "Streets aren't safe after dark for an unmarried woman."