Rocky Mountain Marriage

A blast of night air and her own determination sobered her. She ignored him and turned to the small crowd of anxious faces that, she realized, were her employees now. “I’ll see you all tomorrow.”

“G’night, Miss Dora,” they said in unison.

“Good night.”

It was a good night. A wagon load of miners with money to burn showed up at the Flush round about midnight. A dozen easy hands of poker later, Chance had cleaned them out. He went to bed smiling and a hundred dollars richer, but for the second night in a row couldn’t sleep.

Every few minutes he caught himself peeking out the lace-draped windows of his room to the cabin out back where Dora sat at the desk, late into the night, scribbling away in her diary. Once she glanced up at his room, but it was dark, and he took care, this time around, to stand in the shadows.

What had she found in that safety deposit box? He had to know. Whatever it was, she’d taken it with her. Tomorrow he planned to search her cabin. The fact that Bill even had a safety deposit box stunned him. He hadn’t expected it, and he was a man who didn’t like surprises.

She had mettle, he’d give her that. Standing on that stage tonight took guts, though her speech hadn’t accomplished what she’d intended. The other thing that struck him was that she was practical, Bill’s daughter through and through. She’d shelved those prissy sensibilities, at least for the time being, and had let the Flush ride.

“A school,” he said to himself in the dark. The woman couldn’t be serious.

When he finally did sleep, he had the dream. It was worse this time. He woke up in a cold sweat, the bed sheets twisted around his legs. He was close, so close he could feel it. The money was here. He was here. It was one of them, he was sure of it. Tom? Jim? Rowdy or old Gus? Hell, it could even be Grimmer or Gardner. For all he knew it could be Dora Fitzpatrick herself.

Wild Bill had had a partner—a silent partner who’d known about the money. That’s why he was killed. Chance was going to find out who it was if it was the last thing he did.

It very well might be.

Dora Fitzpatrick was not going to close the saloon. He’d make damn sure of it, no matter what he had to do.

“You want me to do what?” Chance blinked the sleep from his eyes, sat up in bed and pulled the sheet up over his bare torso. Dawn’s light streamed through the lace-curtained windows. He’d forgotten to draw the shades.

Dora stood outside the cracked door of his room, key in hand, her eyes averted. “I’d like you to pack your things.” She shot him a quick glance, her gray eyes widening at his state of undress. “I knocked, but you didn’t answer.” She started to close the door.

He threw off the covers and leaped from the bed. He caught the edge of the door before it closed. “Uh, hang on a second. What’s this about?”

She braced herself, her posture straightening, her chin tipped high, her hand white-knuckled on the doorknob. Their gazes locked through the two inches of open door. She was perfectly aware that he was bare-assed, but refused to let it show in her expression.

Her nostrils flared as she drew a breath, her cheeks blazed scarlet against her will. He’d be damned if she was pretty. She wasn’t, at least not in the way he was used to women being. All the same, there was something powerfully attractive about her that he couldn’t put his finger on. Maybe it was that stubborn will of hers.

“Tonight you may stay in one of the unoccupied rooms across the hall. On the opposite side of the house.” She didn’t blink, not an eyelash. Dora Fitzpatrick had grit.

He pulled on the door, widening the gap another inch. She held fast to the knob, fighting him. “I like this room. Why would I move?”

She tipped her chin higher, her gray eyes steel. “Because I’m telling you to.”

She knew he’d been watching her last night. She knew and yet she hadn’t drawn the curtains over the window. And that made all the difference.

He smiled, aware that their interaction was arousing. At least to him it was. “You are the proprietor, Miss Dora. So I guess I’d best move.”

“Besides,” she said, less sure of herself now. She looked away. Down the hall he heard Delilah and a few of the girls whispering. “Tomorrow’s Sunday, and I’m closing the place for good. You’ll have to be on your way.”

“Now wait a second!” He jerked the door wide.

She jumped, her hand flying off the knob as if it were cattle-brand hot. Her gaze washed over his body as he stepped, naked, into the hall.

“Mr. Wellesley!” She spun on her heel and fled toward the spiral staircase.

Delilah let out a laugh. The girls giggled. They were all in their dressing gowns and up too damned early for their own good.

“Oh, Chaaance,” one of them, Lily, called from down the hall. She waved, and the girls continued to giggle. Delilah shooed them back as Dora hurried past.

He watched, grinning, as she half stumbled down the staircase into the saloon. Ten minutes later he was dressed and chasing after her.

“You’re not serious about this school idea?”

She stood in the center of the saloon, hands on hips, surveying the place with narrowed eyes and a frown. Her brows pinched together as she turned a slow circle. At first he thought she was ignoring him. She wasn’t, he realized. She was thinking.

“As serious as a boll weevil in a cotton field.” She jotted a few lines into her red leather-bound diary, then strode to the far end of the room.

Chance followed. “What do you know about cotton fields?”

She lifted the lid of Tom’s antique piano and peeked inside. “Nothing,” she said, distracted. “But I know a lot about running a school. Hmm…” She plucked a few of the piano wires, closed the lid, then inspected the adjacent stage. “This will do nicely.”

“Do for what?”

She turned to him and, for the first time since the incident upstairs, looked him squarely in the eyes. “For the children’s performances, of course.”

“You mean you teach music?” He hadn’t pegged her for a music teacher.

“I teach everything.” She cast him a dismissive look, then walked back to the center of the room. “Reading, composition, mathematics, science, drama and music. Oh, and Latin.”

“Latin?” The instant he caught up with her she was off again. He dogged her steps. “Who besides scholars and bookworms speak Latin.”

“Read, not speak. Those urchins I saw playing in the street yesterday could benefit nicely from it, I think.”

Chance shook his head. “You’re not like any schoolteacher I ever met.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

He laughed. Not at what she said but the way she said it, as if she knew she was different and damned proud of it. “You’re set on closing the place, then?”

“You don’t think I’d continue to operate a saloon?” She scribbled more notes into the diary, then scowled at the card tables in front of the bar. “We’ll need desks. Perhaps these can be modified.”

“Why not? A woman like you’d do a damned fine job of it.”

She turned on him, one blond brow lifted in astonishment. “You’re not serious?”

“As a boll weevil in a—”

“Honestly, Mr. Wellesley.” She capped her fountain pen and snapped the diary shut. They disappeared into the deep pocket of her dress.

He reminded himself he wanted a look at that diary, but he’d have to wait until she was asleep. She carried it with her every waking moment.

She did an about-face, snaked between the card tables toward the stage, and hurried through the doorway into the hall. Bill had turned one of the two first-floor bedrooms into his study. She paused at the door, looking in, then continued down the long corridor toward the kitchen.