The Bride Wore Blue (21 page)

She shook her head. No more thinking about the what ifs and if onlys. She couldn’t afford that luxury. She needed to keep her eyes on a more realistic future.

“Vivian.”

Vivian was stepping up onto the boardwalk at the corner when the sound of her name challenged her resolve. Ida hurried toward her down
Bennett. What was her sister doing here? This wasn’t a good time. Vivian stilled her steps anyway and waved as Ida approached.

“I thought that was you,” Ida said. “I’m glad I caught you before you went in to work.”

Think, Vivian, think
. Vivian offered her sister what she hoped came across as a sweet smile. “I’m surprised to see you out and about this time of morning.”
Mortified
would’ve been more precise. “Aren’t you usually hard at work in the showroom by now?”

“Normally, I am. But I had banking to tend to and letters to mail. I’m on my way to the icehouse now.” Ida glanced up at the National Hotel housed in the brick building beside them. “What about you? Are you headed in to work?”

“Yes.” Vivian laughed nervously. “I was on my way to work.” She shifted to the right, toward the hotel’s main door on Bennett. This was where Miss Hattie and her family thought she worked. She’d told them she was a hostess … at the hotel. She’d
tried
to get a job there. She’d hoped to be a server in the main dining room, but she was the wrong gender and the wrong color.

“I should let you go.” Ida smiled. “Good to see you.”

“Yes, and I’ll see you again on Saturday morning at Miss Hattie’s.”

“Bright and early.”

Nodding, Vivian walked across the front of the building and ascended the steps. At the door to the National Hotel, she looked back at the boardwalk, where her sister still stood, watching her. Vivian waved and reached for the door of the four-story building.

A side door off the right side of the lobby caught her attention. Squaring her shoulders, she entered an expansive buffet room, perfectly situated on the corner of Bennett and Fourth. A smattering of folks
dotted the dining area. Vivian smiled at them as if she belonged there and strolled toward the window.

She looked out at the boardwalk and sighed. Ida was still out there, and now she had company, a stylish, red-headed woman Vivian didn’t recognize. Whatever could they be discussing that was more important than Ida getting to work? Vivian hadn’t left the boardinghouse early enough for detours and lallygagging. She glanced up at the clock on the diagonal wall. It showed the time as two minutes before ten o’clock.

Ten o’clock sharp, Miss Pearl had said. Vivian would be late today. How late apparently depended upon her sister. Ida didn’t seem to share Vivian’s sense of urgency today.

“May I help you, miss?”

Vivian looked up into the oval face of a Negro man. “No, thank you, sir. I just wanted to enjoy a little sunlight without having to go out in it.” Smiling, she pointed to the window. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all. Enjoy the sunlight, ma’am, and you let me know if there’s anything I can do to serve you.”

“I will, and thank you.” Vivian turned back toward the window. Ida no longer stood on that stretch of the boardwalk. Vivian walked back to the door, ignoring the folks staring at her. Thankfully, she only had to cross Bennett, walk down one block and over one lot to get to work.

But first, she had to be sure she didn’t have an audience.

By the time Vivian reached her dressing room at the Homestead House, Colleen had Vivian’s undergarments laid out on the bed and her pink dress hanging on a hook from the open wardrobe door. Vivian closed the door behind her and fumbled with the buttons at the side of
her skirt. Two sharp taps followed by two light taps on the door told her Colleen had seen her come up the stairs.

“Come in, Colleen.”

Her chambermaid stepped inside, her black and white uniform spotless. “Morning, Miss Violet, I was beginning to worry about you.” Colleen reached for the troublesome buttons. “You have some troubles getting here, did you? ”

“Only unexpected delays.” And tedious detours.

“Well, don’t worry. I’ll have you ready in plenty of time.” Colleen loosened the skirt and began on the buttons on the back of Vivian’s shirtwaist. “At least it’s Monday. If it were Wednesday, you would’ve been late for your appointment.”

“My appointment? ”

“With the doctor. No one told you?”

Vivian couldn’t push words past the knot in her throat, so she shook her head.

Colleen helped her step out of her private-life clothes. “The doctor will be here to examine you before you dress for work on Wednesday.”

Vivian swallowed hard. “I don’t want a doctor. Why would I need a doctor? There must be some mistake.” She crossed her arms, suddenly feeling naked despite her undergarments. “Miss Pearl didn’t say anything about having to see a doctor.”

“She may have thought Miss Opal mentioned it to you, but no need to worry. It’s not until Wednesday.”

“I don’t want a doctor.”

“You all have to have a doctor sign off on you before you can get the work permits from the city.”

“Work permit? I don’t understand any of this.”

“It helps ensure your health while keeping everything legal for Miss Pearl. The doctor won’t take long. It’ll be over before you know it.”

A doctor. Did Morgan do this kind of work? Would Kat even allow it? Vivian fanned herself. Her life had turned into a stage play, and she the lead actress. But how would she keep her roles straight if her private life refused to remain private?

Carter stirred the dried beef chunks that sizzled on the stove in a white gravy. He topped two slices of honey-wheat toast with the creamy beef mixture and sprinkled the results with a liberal amount of black pepper. With a mug full of steaming coffee in his other hand, he carried his meal to the wood-plank table near the window.

He didn’t much care for the stark light of the bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, so he turned up the wick on the kerosene lamp on the table and pulled the cord on the electric light.

Finally, he was ready to eat.

Carter bowed his head, enjoying the silence and the savory scent of his meal. It wouldn’t taste as good as his mother’s version, but it wasn’t bad for a bachelor’s cooking.

Lord God, I thank You for this food. And I ask for Your strength, Your grace, and Your protection as I and so many others pursue Pickett and his gang. In Jesus’ name, I pray, Amen
.

His first bite took him back to Leadville, to his mother’s kitchen. It’d been too long since he’d seen his mother, but he couldn’t make the trip to Leadville anytime soon. Not with outlaws active in his territory. And even if she did finally agree to come see him, it wasn’t safe. Not yet.

Boney Hughes had come into town this morning, and they’d
frittered away most of the day. Carter had spent so much time studying maps of the fifty square miles north of town that his eyes wanted to cross. Boney pointed out more nooks and crannies in the hillsides than there were combs in a beehive. He knew of played-out mines and deserted shacks that might attract vagrants and desperados. The deputies in Divide were taking care of their fifty square miles, but that still left Carter with a lot of ground to cover.

So far Pickett and his friends had managed to dodge him and a passel of other lawmen, but the shorter bandit had shot up a piano in Cripple Creek after Mac’s death. Two weeks ago, Edgar heard talk in his saloon of three men seen in the Pass who fit the descriptions of the bank robbers. They were fools to still be in the valley, and getting careless. At least one of them would soon make a mistake.

That was what Carter was waiting for. That was why he’d go out in the wind and hide in the shadows on a Monday night. His hunch told him Pearl DeVere was the reason the outlaws were still here. And if the man who bought the horse from her was feeling lonely tonight and showed up at the Homestead House, Carter could put an end to the robberies.

A hunch wasn’t much to go on in most circles, but he had one, and his hunch told him the man who bought the dapple-gray horse would make a mistake that involved a certain house on Myers Avenue.

Carter chewed his last bite of beef and drained his coffee cup. He set his dishes in the wash bucket and looked out the window. Twilight, and not all the shops had closed yet. Still too early to make his move. He had some time to kill.

He went to his chest of drawers and pulled out the writing box his mother had given him when he left Leadville. He carried the wooden box to the table and pulled out a piece of stationery and a fountain pen.

He planted his elbows on the table and tapped his chin with the tip of the pen.

Dearest Mother
,

It had been at least six months since his last letter. He reread her last missive before putting pen to paper again.

I am well. I hope you are too, Mother, and that you are enjoying your summer. We haven’t experienced any real heat here yet. In fact, it’s the end of August, and still moderate
.

As far as the temperature was concerned, that was true. Where Vivian Sinclair was concerned,
moderate
was not an adjective he’d use. She could be hot, then cold, with the mere mention of a name. Or a day of the week. The young woman’s sensibilities were definitely a puzzle he had yet to piece together. An undertaking he wanted to pursue.

Vivian was younger than he was by eight or nine years, and naive. He needed to be patient—let her become more established in the community. Perhaps by then, he would have figured out what to do about his job.

Thirty minutes later, Carter had finished the letter to his mother and another to Mac’s family. He put away the writing box and, on his way to the door, pulled his hat off the hook.

Carter didn’t walk all the way to Myers Avenue. Tonight he’d watch the house of ill repute from a different angle—diagonally from the alley. At least for a while. He wanted to make sure he didn’t miss anyone trying to sneak in through the kitchen door.

Crouched in the dark, he watched one man after another—all shapes and sizes—head to the front steps of the brothel. Most didn’t
seem the least bit concerned with discretion. Others appeared nervous, scanning their surroundings like a church mouse on Sunday mornings. Electric lights glowed in upstairs windows that did little to hold in the sordid laughter and the phonograph music.

Carter had been watching the place for nearly an hour when he spied a man walking up the street in the shadows. The light spilling out of the sporting-house windows was just enough for him to see that the man wore a derby and an overcoat. Granted, those were plentiful and popular items of clothing, but on such a temperate summer night, the coat seemed out of place. And the man was thick in the middle, like the shorter of the bandits—the man who bought the horse from Pearl.

Carter waited to make his move until the man passed the front corner of the house. Quietly, he made his way to the front of the house, catching the man on the first step. “Sir, I’m Deputy Alwyn, and I’d like to have a word with you.”

The man stilled but showed no sign of turning around.

His hand on his gun, Carter stepped around him and looked into his face. His features didn’t share any similarities with those Vivian had described for the sketches, but they were indeed familiar.

“Deputy.” He seemed to be studying the ground.

Carter drew in a deep breath, disappointed on many levels. “I believe this means I will no longer have the displeasure of your company in my office on Tuesday mornings. Isn’t that right, Mr. Updike?”

The banker nodded before continuing up the steps.

I
’m only a daytime hostess in the game room.” Vivian stood in front of the wardrobe in her room at the Homestead House, tying her pantaloons with trembling hands. This humiliation was second only to the day Gregory said he could never marry a girl who had sullied herself.

Doc Susie looked up at Vivian from where she sat at the dressing table. Her hand rested on the form she’d been filling in since the exam began. “Are you sure you want to do this, Miss … 
Violet
?” She glanced around the room. “Work in this kind of place, I mean.”