Rocky Mountain Marriage

She gathered her wits, ignoring the stunned expressions and hushed whispers of the bank’s customers and said, “None of your business.”

“Fair enough.”

His acquiescence stunned her. “Fine.” Before he could say anything else to annoy her, she brushed past him and returned to the banker’s office.

“Everything all right, Miss Fitzpatrick?” It was plain he’d overheard their conversation.

“Just fine.”

“If you don’t mind my giving advice… Chance Wellesley is a gambler and a notorious ladies’ man to boot. You might want to think twice about being seen with him.”

“Yes, well, I appreciate your advice, Mr. Gardner.” It seemed strange to her that the banker would warn her against him in one breath, then turn around and loan him money in the next. “I’d like to see my father’s safety deposit box now, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“No trouble at all.” He came around his desk, retrieved a key from his watch pocket that was secured to a heavy chain, then opened a door behind which was a set of stairs. “The vault is in the basement. After you.”

The vault room was well-secured and brightly lit. She was momentarily startled by the two armed guards seated in the foyer, late-model rifles resting in their laps. The banker nodded at them, and they disappeared up the stairs.

She approached the wall of safety deposit boxes with her key.

“It’s this one, I believe.” Mr. Gardner pulled a long metal strongbox from one of the numbered cubbyholes set into the wall and placed it on a nearby table. “Allow me.” He held out his hand for the key, his gaze fixed on hers. His blue eyes sparkled in the lamp light.

She considered that John Gardner had an honest face and a smile every bit as unassuming as Chance Wellesley’s was wicked. He was her father’s banker and she wanted to trust him, but if she’d learned anything from reading all those mystery novels, it was to never trust anyone where large sums of money were concerned.

She hesitated, staring at his manicured hand, then said, “I think I’d like to open it alone, if you don’t mind.”

He was speechless for a moment, then recovered himself. “Of course. How stupid of me. Please…” He pulled out the single chair for her to sit. She made herself comfortable. “I’ll be right upstairs if you need me.”

“Thank you.”

She waited until she heard him top the flight of stairs and the sound of his footfalls in the room above her. It was cool in the vault room, but she was perspiring.

Debts, a mortgage and a six-thousand-acre ranch that no one wanted to buy.

She slid off her gloves and realized her hands were shaking. When she’d received her father’s letter and had made the decision to relocate to Last Call, she’d liquidated her life’s savings, which hadn’t amounted to much, and had given notice at the one-room school in Colorado Springs where she’d taught for the past seven years. A new schoolteacher had already been hired. She couldn’t go back. There was nothing to go back to.

Dora drew a breath and opened the box. What she saw inside confused her.

The box was carefully lined in newsprint and contained only two items: a tortoiseshell comb that looked oddly familiar to her and a tintype portrait she instantly recognized as her father.

There was no money.

Chapter Three

“I’ m sorry to inform you all that the Royal Flush is closed.” Dora stood in the middle of the stage at the far end of the saloon and gazed out at a sea of faces, all turned in her direction. Apparently her years of oration in the classroom transferred quite effectively to other, less scholarly settings.

The employees looked at her in confusion. The customers, on the other hand, appeared delighted and immediately rearranged their chairs to face her. With a shock she realized they mistook her announcement for the opening of a performance. After all, it was Friday evening, it was a saloon, and she was standing on the stage.

She tried a different approach. “May I have your attention, please?”

A man at the bar whistled. The customers laughed.

She ignored them and continued. “My name is Eudora Fitzpatrick. I’m William Fitz— I mean, Wild Bill’s, um, daughter.”

The crowd cheered. More men whistled, and some even raised their glasses to her. Tom, the piano player, whom she’d asked to stop playing a few moments ago, started up again. Delilah whispered something into the bartender’s ear, then rushed to gather up her girls.

Chance Wellesley reluctantly let one of them slide off his lap. She felt a brief moment of victory when he put down his hand of cards. He was the only customer, however, who did. The rest of them returned to their gaming.

“The saloon is closed!” Though she shouted, her voice failed to carry over the music and the chatter, which had returned to its customary, earsplitting volume.

Delilah shrugged at her, then shooed the girls back to work. Jim lined up a half-dozen shot glasses along the bar, then winked at her as he filled them in one easy motion. She noticed he didn’t spill a drop. Rowdy, whom she’d asked to stand by the front entrance and lock the outer doors once all the customers had gone, looked to her for direction.

What was she going to do if the employees refused to stop working and the customers refused to stop gambling, drinking and engaging in the unmentionable goings-on upstairs?

After the shock of discovering her father’s safety deposit box contained no cash and nothing of any value, except for the tintype that for sentimental reasons was valuable to her, Dora had spent an hour conversing with John Gardner. He’d confirmed Chance Wellesley’s proclamation.

Her father had died owing substantial sums of money to nearly every business in Last Call, in addition to being three months behind on his interest payment to the bank. Foreclosure was imminent. John Gardner was accountable to his investors, and while he’d kindly offered to review and possibly renegotiate the loan, it would do no good as she had no way of paying it. The only solution was to sell off the property, which Mr. Gardner had advised, as soon as a buyer could be located. He’d generously offered to ask around for her.

“What’s this all about?” The voice came from behind her. It was one she recognized—and loathed.

She turned just as Chance parted the red velvet curtains draping the stage, grabbed her arm and pulled her into the darkness.

“Let me go!” How did he get back there without her seeing him? Not a moment ago he’d been sitting with his boots propped up on a card table, flirting with Delilah’s girls.

“I will when you start talking sense.” He maneuvered her toward the back of the stage, where she was relieved to see an open door leading to the softly lit hallway running the length of the first floor.

A minute later she was seated at the table in the kitchen, and he was making them a pot of strong coffee, rattling around the cupboards as if he owned the place and not her.

“What’s all this nonsense about closing the place? You didn’t say anything about that this afternoon.”

Her afternoon had been spent avoiding his questions. He’d been waiting for her outside the bank when she’d finally emerged. She’d wrapped the tintype and the tortoiseshell comb carefully in the newsprint that had lined her father’s safety deposit box and had stuffed the package into her reticule. The obvious bulge had captured Chance’s attention.

“It was Gardner’s idea, wasn’t it?”

“To close the saloon? It most certainly was not.”

She didn’t like lying, but she refused to be cowed by a gambler. Her affairs were not his concern. John had, in fact, suggested closing the Royal Flush. Dora had agreed on principle. He’d also offered to assist her in inventorying and selling off anything that might be of value, using the profits to keep the interest payments up on the mortgage until the property sold.

“If you must know,” she said, committed to her falsehood, “John advises keeping the saloon open until the ranch sells.”

“So it’s John, now.”

An odd feeling fluttered inside her. The stab of jealousy that flashed in his eyes lasted only for a heartbeat.

“It’s my own idea to close the saloon. I’ve told you.”

“Close it?” Delilah burst into the kitchen, her flounces and feather boas following in her wake like a whole other wardrobe.

Jim the bartender and Tom the piano player were right behind her. They all jammed into the kitchen. A few of Delilah’s girls poked their heads into the doorway.