Rocky Mountain Marriage

“That’s what I thought I heard out there,” Jim said, “but I couldn’t rightly believe my ears.”

“Believe them,” she said, and stood.

Chance offered her a cup of coffee, but she ignored it. Delilah took it and slugged it down.

“The ranch is for sale. In the meantime, I’m closing the saloon, selling off the garish furnishings and artwork, especially that indecent painting above the bar, and reopening the house as an establishment I know something about.”

“And that would be…?” Chance eyed her.

“A school.”

Delilah’s mouth dropped open. Jim’s eyes bugged. The piano player gawked at her, and the girls crowded into the doorway all started talking at once. Chance merely snorted as if she’d lost her mind.

“There isn’t a school in Last Call.” She’d confirmed that fact with John Gardner. “I plan to open one. Here.”

She intended to approach the town council the first thing Monday morning to see about funding. Children were playing in the streets, for pity’s sake. They ought to be in school.

“You can’t close the Flush, Miss Eudora.” The piano player looked as if he were going to cry. “You just can’t.”

“Why not?”

They all looked at each other. She had the oddest feeling they were keeping something from her, something important. Her father’s words echoed in her mind.

Rest assured, your financial future is secure. I’ve left you something at the ranch.

When she’d first read her father’s last letter to her, she’d been stunned by the prospect of an inheritance, but that wasn’t the reason she’d come to Last Call. Besides, the empty safety deposit box had cured her of any wishful thinking. What her father had left her with was not a fortune but a financial nightmare.

“I’m closing the saloon, and that’s that.”

“Tonight?” Jim exchanged glances with Delilah.

“Why not tonight?”

“It’s Friday, that’s why.” Chance arched a brow at her, and she was struck, not for the first time, by how handsome he was.

She pushed the unbidden thought from her mind and said, “What’s so special about Friday?”

The girls giggled. Delilah gave them a hard look and they instantly quieted.

“It’s the biggest take of the week,” Chance said. “Except for Saturday. At the bar in drinks and tips, at the tables in winnings, of which the house gets a five percent cut, and uh…well, you know.” He jerked his head toward the doorway, where Delilah’s girls continued to gawk at her.

Dora frowned, not understanding him.

“He means upstairs, honey,” Delilah whispered.

“Oh!” Her cheeks blazed, and it wasn’t because the kitchen was overwarm, even with half the employees of the Royal Flush crowded into it.

“The house gets a twenty-percent cut of that business. It’s a damned good share.” Chance didn’t blink as he watched her.

“And, uh, you’re the house, Miss Dora.” Jim grinned ear to ear, as if she should be overjoyed by the notion of making a profit from the scandalous enterprise.

“I see.” Dora was mortified. At the same time she was intrigued. “And, um, just how much would the house make on an average Friday night?”

“Enough to pay the mercantile in town what Wild Bill’s owed ’em for the past month,” Jim said.

Delilah nodded her agreement.

“That much?” John Gardner had taken it upon himself to prepare a listing of her father’s outstanding debts for her. The mercantile bill was sizable.

Looking at their faces and listening to the boisterous crowd out front—a crowd that in one night promised to spend enough money at the Royal Flush to settle a debt for which she was now accountable—it was clear to her that nothing would be accomplished tonight. So, against her better judgment, she relied on intuition and gave in. For now.

“Very well,” she said in her most teacherlike voice. “The Royal Flush will remain open—for tonight. And, um, perhaps tomorrow night as well.” If Saturday was, indeed, the most profitable evening of the week, only a fool would close the saloon before then. She had bills to pay, and she was simply being practical.

Delilah and Jim breathed audible sighs of relief. The girls squealed as Tom drummed his fingers on the door frame in a mock concerto.

“Good decision,” Chance said. He drained his coffee cup and set it in the sink. “Bill would have been pleased.”

“Yes, well…” Somehow that thought wasn’t comforting. Furthermore, she was sick and tired of Chance Wellesley’s meddling, and was determined to nip it in the bud. “I do have one question for you all before I retire.”

They looked at her, all ears.

“Mr. Wellesley was not in my father’s employ, was he?”

“No, ma’am,” Jim said. “Chance don’t work for nobody except himself.”

Chance frowned at her, but she continued, undaunted. “Then why does he claim to know so much about the operation of this saloon?”

Delilah and Jim exchanged another look. The girls giggled, and Delilah hushed them. “Me and Jim keep the place running,” she said. “Have done even when your pa was alive. But Chance, here…well, he entertains folks, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, he’s entertaining, all right.”

Chance shot her a slow smile that threatened to melt the skin right off her if she let it. She didn’t.

“He brings in a lot of business,” Jim chimed in. “High rollers from all over. The Flush wouldn’t be the Flush without Chance.”

No, she thought, as she studied him. It wouldn’t.

He stared back, and for the barest moment dispensed with that boyish affectation he seemed to cultivate like a weed. In a moment of clarity, she realized with shock it was cultivated. But why?

Where had Chance Wellesley come from? No one seemed to know. And why had he made himself a permanent fixture at her father’s saloon for the past six months? She’d learned that fact from Tom not an hour ago. What was his stake in her affairs—she was certain he had one—and why had he, just now, looked away as if he were hiding something, something he desperately wanted kept secret?

Dora blew out a breath.

Sometimes, late at night, when she read the mystery novels she was so fond of, she’d imagine herself as the protagonist, an amateur sleuth. Right now a bit of sleuthing seemed in order, with Chance Wellesley as the subject of her investigation.

“It’s late,” she said, and moved to the back door.

Chance beat her to it and held it open. “Sweet dreams.” The boyish charm was back.