Rocky Mountain Marriage

“I’ll do no such thing.” She handed the whiskey back to the bartender, who shrugged, then drank it down himself.

The piano player started up again, and the saloon’s customers went back to their drinking and card-playing and… She flashed a glance at the barely dressed women leaning from the balcony. One of them waved to her. Dora shuddered.

The man who was decidedly too handsome for his own good smiled again, but this time she didn’t let it affect her. “Let’s get you back on your feet, Mrs….”

“Miss,” she said curtly. Carefully, she swiveled her legs around so they dangled off the bar. “And you are?”

“Charles Wellesley.” He offered her his hand. “But most people call me Chance.”

“That’s quite fitting.” She ignored his proffered hand and readied herself to jump down.

“Is it? How so?”

She arched a brow at him. “You are a gambler, aren’t you?”

A few of the onlookers laughed, but he didn’t.

“Can’t always judge a book by its cover, Miss…”

She scooted to the side, avoiding him altogether, then slid off the bar to her feet. Taking a moment to gather her thoughts, she risked another look at the base establishment her father had bequeathed her.

The bar was crafted of rich, dark pine, had polished brass fittings and was dressed nearly to the ceiling in bottle racks jammed with liquor. A cash register stood in the center below the painting, a few bills poking out from its half-closed drawer. An old mirror flanking the portrait confirmed her appearance.

She looked as if she’d just been scraped up off the floor, which, she reminded herself, she had. Someone—and she could guess who—had unbuttoned her high-necked blouse, revealing her throat. “Of all the—” She quickly buttoned it up again.

“Miss?” Chance Wellesley said again.

“Pay him no mind,” Delilah said, and stepped up to help her fix her hair. “He’s a charmer, that’s what he is.”

He did laugh then, and despite her intention not to look at him again, she did, and was instantly sorry. His gaze swept over her body as if he were appraising a side of beef ready for market. How rude!

“Here’s your bible.” He slid a hand into his coat pocket and produced her red, leather-bound diary. “You dropped it when you fainted.”

“My…bible.” His intellect apparently didn’t match his looks. She made a derisory sound in the back of her throat and snatched it from his hand. Her father’s letter was still tucked carefully away inside it. “Perhaps you’re right, Mr. Wellesley. One can’t always judge a book by its cover.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” He looked her up and down again. “Take you, for instance. I’d bet my last double eagle you’re lost.”

“You’d lose that bet, I’m afraid.” She was right. He was a gambler.

“A woman like you, waltzing into a place like this on purpose? Hard to believe.”

“A woman like me? I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” She’d had just about enough of him. Back in Colorado Springs where she’d taught school, she knew just how to deal with impudent boys, even overgrown ones.

She looked around for her cloak, but didn’t see it, and her reticule, which had been hooked to the inside. All the money she had in the world, which wasn’t much, was hidden in its lining. To her relief, the bartender produced them both.

“Thank you,” she said, and slipped the braided strap of the reticule over her gloved hand. The bartender helped her into her cloak.

“Chance here took it off you, ma’am, after he picked you up and carried you to the bar.”

Just as she’d suspected. She turned to look at her knight apparent one last time before leaving, and felt her cheeks blaze anew when she met his amused stare. “Well, I’m grateful to you all, I’m sure. But I’ll be going now.”

She’d rather walk the two miles back to Last Call in the dark than stay here another second. Tomorrow she’d see a lawyer in town. Perhaps he could straighten everything out for her, and she’d never have to set foot in this place again.

Chance Wellesley tipped his hat to her. “Have a safe trip to wherever it is you’re going, Miss…? You never did tell me your name.”

This time he looked at her as if she were wearing little more than the redhead in the painting above the bar. Never in her life had she met a man so insufferable.

“Fitzpatrick,” she said, louder than perhaps she should have, but then she was mad. She always did have a temper. One day it would catch up with her, her mother had been fond of saying. “Eudora Elizabeth Fitzpatrick.”

“Well, what do you know?” the bartender said.

She felt Chance Wellesley’s eyes on her as she marched toward the swinging doors, men scattering before her like spooked quail.

“Wild Bill Fitzpatrick has a daughter!”

She had sturdy boots and strong legs. Two miles on a good road under a full moon was next to nothing. Unfortunately, it turned out to be the longest, most unpleasant two miles of Dora’s life.

“Will you please stop following me!”

Chance reined his mount alongside her and picked up the pace to match hers. “I’m not following you, particularly. I’m just heading into town.”

“Why?”

He’d stormed out the door of the Royal Flush after her, and had tried, but failed, to dissuade her from leaving. He’d gone so far as to suggest there’d be no accommodations for her in town. She knew better. Besides, her mind was made up. She refused to spend another second in that saloon.

“No reason. Just exercising old Silas here.”

She glanced at his mount, a tall black-and-white gelding. A paint. As horses went, Silas appeared to be an agreeable animal. Too bad the man riding him was not.

“You left your trunk behind,” Chance said. “Better hope no one steals it.”

“The bartender said he’d put it away for me. Besides, there’s nothing important in it.” Which was a lie. The letters her father had written her over the years, letters her mother had kept from her and that she’d only just discovered after Caroline Fitzpatrick’s funeral, were secreted away in the lining. “Everything I need I have with me.”

Including the small brass key that had been tucked inside the envelope of his last letter to her, the letter informing her of her inheritance. She patted it inside the pocket of her dress as she walked. She had no idea what the key opened. On the stagecoach from Colorado Springs she’d been excited by the mystery. Now she just wanted to get as far away from the Royal Flush as possible.

“You should have said something when you first arrived, about you being Wild Bill’s daughter.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call him that.” Though it did seem fitting. Her childhood had been peppered with stories of her father’s wicked ways. It had been her mother’s way of insuring Dora steered away from men like that. Men like the man riding beside her, who, despite her numerous protests, seemed intent on escorting her back to town.

“Why not? Everyone called him that. Besides, he liked the name.”

“Did he? Well, that doesn’t surprise me.”

“You sound angry.”

“I’m not angry. I’m just…” Confused was what she was, though she’d never in a million years admit it to the likes of Chance Wellesley.

She barely remembered her father. Growing up, all she’d known of him was what her mother had told her, and Caroline Fitzpatrick hadn’t painted a very pretty picture. Dora had believed every word of it—until she’d found the letters.