Deborah Camp (8 page)

His clothes were rumpled, having been slept in, and his hair had received a rough finger-combing. Unshaven and smelling faintly of whiskey, he was every bride’s nightmare.

“No gentleman would show his face in public looking like that,” Sally said, pointing at Reno. “He stinks like a still.”

Reno grinned at Sally, opened his mouth, and released an horrendous, eardrum-rattling belch. Sally fell backward as if she’d been shot, her eyes growing huge and all color draining from her face. While Adele knew she should be shocked to the soles of her feet by such behavior, she had to bite her lips to keep from laughing.

“You are a heathen!” Sally declared. “Just like your ancestors.”

“Oh, that’s right. You never approved of my bloodlines, did you?” Reno said, running a hand along his whiskered jaw. “Never had much use for Indians or Gypsies.”

“I appreciate
civilized
Indians,” Sally corrected, wrinkling her nose at him as if he were a cow pattie. “You seem to enjoy being the black sheep, the poor relation. Win used to say you made a vocation of it.”

“Did he now?” He smirked at that, then pounded the counter with his fist. “Where’s my coffee?”

Adele stepped forward and Reno swung his attention to her. Immediately she saw the frost in his eyes melt and his grin lose its bitterness. For all his blustering and surliness, she could still reach his heart, and that softened hers toward him. Once again she
yearned to fashion him into the man she knew he could be.

“If you’ll clean up, comb your hair, and change into fresh clothing, I will see that you are fed.”

The corners of his wide mouth dipped in displeasure. “I have to meet with your approval before I get fed, huh?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so.” With that he stood and strode into the kitchen. The door flapped behind him.

Sally placed her hands at her waist in defiance. “Are you going to let him run this place and you?”

“Oh, hush up, Sally,” Adele said, then went after her obstinate bridegroom. She found him rummaging through a basket of biscuits. Four slices of bacon already sizzled in a frying pan on the stove, where the cook tended to it.

“Mrs. McDonald, would you mind going to the butcher’s for that lard?”

The cook glanced anxiously from Adele to Reno as she untied her apron and laid it on the long table. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Thank you.” She motioned for the cook to leave the frying bacon, taking her place before the stove. When Mrs. McDonald had departed, Adele set the skillet off the fire and turned to confront Reno. “If we are going to continue with this odd relationship, there are a few things we must get straight between us.”

One side of Reno’s mouth tipped up in a rakish grin. “I can think of one thing in particular,” he said, jeering at her and making her blush when she realized he was making a ribald joke. “But we can remedy that tonight.”

“Such talk does not impress me,” she asserted. “I’m
appalled by your lack of ambition, Reno Gold, but I’m here to tell you that you will turn over a new leaf, because I have no use for lazybones around here. You will earn your keep.”

“You’re going to make a new man of me, is that it?”

“Exactly.” Adele lifted her chin to meet his eyes. He stood before her, blocking her view of everything with the width of his body and the power of his presence. “And I’m not pleased that you broke my door and planted the cot in my parlor. After you have cleaned up and made yourself presentable, your first chore today is to fix that door. You may have a bacon sandwich, and once you have completed your chores for the day, I will instruct Mrs. McDonald to prepare you a delicious supper.”

He said nothing, just gripped her shoulders and eased her off to one side so that he could finish frying the bacon. Adele decided to leave it at that. She had made herself clear, so there was no use in laboring her points. Giving him a tight smile, she whirled and went back into the restaurant, where Sally was sitting at a table by the window while Colleen and Helen, the two other waitresses, mopped the floor.

“Congratulations on your marriage,” Helen said, her blue eyes bright with mischief. “I hear he’s quite a catch.”

Colleen, a tall brunette with deep dimples in her round cheeks, stifled a giggle.

“Yes, ma’am, you’ve got the whole town buzzing over this mail-order husband of yours,” Helen continued. “That’s all I heard this morning at breakfast and again during the dinner hour. Everybody was asking
me if it was true you actually married that fella who fell off the train at your feet.”

“Adele, I hope you’re enjoying being the laughing-stock of this town,” Sally said, giving Colleen and Helen a silencing glare. “Did you have a word with him? Did he listen or burp in your face?”

Adele went toward the door that led to her private quarters and motioned for Sally. “May I speak with you, please?”

Sally joined her in the parlor, and Adele shut the door to give them privacy. She sat on the camel-backed sofa and patted the cushion next to her. Sally took a seat.

“I know you want the best for me,” Adele began, selecting her words carefully, “and I do appreciate that, but you must let me deal with Reno. By fussing with him, you are simply making things more difficult for me.”

Sally threw up her hands. “Heaven knows, he’s your problem. But Adele, you can’t go on like this, with the town snickering behind your back. You were so well respected, and now this.” She glanced at the cot where Reno had spent the night. “Enough is enough, don’t you think?”

“I believe he has potential. With my help, he could become a respected member of this community.”

Sally stared at her, aghast. “He’s not a stray cat, Adele. Please don’t make him one of your causes. Reno Gold will never amount to anything but disgrace. As a boy he was worthless and as a man he has not increased his value.”

Adele flinched at Sally’s scathing opinion. “I don’t think he was worthless and I don’t think he’s worthless
now. He was a good friend to me back in Lawrence, and I savor my memories of my time with him. Regardless of your thoughts about his future, Sally, he is my husband now and I am his wife. Please remember that and don’t criticize us in front of others. Believe it or not, I’m not the only one with feelings. Reno has his pride, as well.”

Sally shrugged. “It’s your problem. I was only trying to make you see how degrading this could be for you.”

Adele placed a hand on Sally’s. “Believe me, I can handle Reno.”

“Humpf.” Sally stood up and smoothed the wrinkles from her apron. “Oh, well. If anyone can mold him into a decent human being, it’s you.” She pulled a finger across her lips, sealing them. “No more public displays from me, I promise.”

“Thank you.” Adele stood up from the sofa.

“But if you need someone to talk to or a shoulder to cry on, if things get too tough for you, Dellie …”

Adele nodded, placing an arm around her friend’s waist. “I know I have you, Sally, and for that I am grateful. But I assure you, I can handle him.”

“Humpf,” Sally repeated, and Adele swore to herself that she would prove to Sally and the whole darned town that a good woman could bring out the best in any man—even the stubborn, ill-mannered Reno Gold.

“T
his isn’t working out at all,” Adele murmured to herself as she stood up from her desk, where she’d been working on payroll ledgers. Late-morning sun spilled into the room and warmed the crumpled covers on Reno’s cot. Adele turned her back on it, preferring not to dwell on the odd, irritating sleeping arrangements. “Why he won’t sleep out back is beyond me,” she grumbled.

A train whistle split the air. Adele sighed. The 10:10, she thought. The very same train that brought Reno Gold back into her structured life and set it spinning crazily like a child’s top. He’d been living with her for nine days, and she’d made no headway with him. In fact, he seemed to become more lazy and aimless with each passing hour. She took his poor behavior as a personal failure and she was certain everyone looked at her with diminished respect. After all, a good woman brought out the best in her man.

All Adele had been able to bring out in Reno was his penchant for bedeviling her and spooking Sally. He chanted in Cherokee under his breath and sharpened
his hunting knife at the supper table and had taken to wearing a medicine bag tied to his belt, all for Sally’s benefit. Sally thought of him as a savage, and he was bound and determined to live up to it.

Then there were the long, tension-filled evenings, when Adele lay in her bed and listened for Reno to come to his. She had no earthly idea where he spent his evenings and she would rather have cut out her tongue than ask him, but her mind was alive with scenarios.

Each evening she imagined him flashing his infamous smile at the painted women in town while he told tall tales and spoke disparagingly of his new wife. Her imagination tortured her with images of him kissing rouge-painted lips and palming rounded backsides, of him dancing close and buying drinks. She hated to even ponder where he was getting his money. She certainly hadn’t given him any, so she surmised he was gambling at the Red Queen and winning enough to impress the ladies.

During the evening she listened for the sweet notes of Chopin’s Nocturne, for Reno usually checked the time on his pocket watch when he arrived home. The haunting notes would signal the beginning of those excruciating minutes when Adele would lie stiffly in her bed, barely breathing, and wait to see if Reno would go peacefully to his cot or try to exercise his husbandly rights.

So far he had opted for the cot. Adele told herself each evening that she was glad, relieved, thankful. But deep in her heart she was resentful. What was wrong with her? What was wrong with him? Why did he prefer the attentions of bought women to hers? The
least he could do was
try
to seduce her! Not that she’d let him get very far. After all, she had her pride.

Yes, her pride. Adele sat heavily in the straight-backed desk chair and stared glumly at the cot. Pride was a heavy weight for a woman to carry around for nine whole days and nights. Things just weren’t working out well at all.

Things sure were looking up, Reno thought while he composed a telegram to his partner, Lewis Fields, telling him just that and thanking him for sending money, which Reno had deposited in the Whistle Stop Bank.

His lucky streak was holding, giving him winning hands during the games of poker he and a handful of other gents enjoyed in the back room of the bank. Reno had taken a liking to Paul Green, the bank president, and had confided in him about his situation in life, both financially and matrimonially. On the nights he hadn’t played poker at the bank, Reno had gone to Paul’s house for dinner.

The only problem with this pattern was that Adele didn’t seem to care where he was spending his evenings or with whom. Or maybe she did care, but she didn’t want him to know it.

At least he had Sally on the run. Hell, that gal headed in the opposite direction every time she saw him, which suited him fine. He never could stomach Sally’s uppity ways. She’d always acted as though she was better than most people and that the world owed her a good life. No wonder Win had been so melancholy. To want Adele and end up with Sally would plummet any man into the doldrums.

Having conversed with the town gents around the poker table, he’d learned that Adele had garnered a heap of respect for herself in Whistle Stop but not any beaux. Oh, sure, there were men who had their eyes on her, but nobody other than Taylor Terrapin had tried to court her. Nobody dared. She was a formidable presence and intimidated men with her intelligence and sharp tongue. Her progressive thinking turned some townspeople against her.

Funny that all the characteristics that put off most were the very ones that drew Reno to her like a pin to a magnet. She was the most challenging, most infuriating, most independent, most exasperating, most beautiful woman he’d ever known. Simple as that.

Which is why it raised his hackles that she hadn’t asked him where he’d been spending his evenings. Hell, he wasn’t even sure she knew he was sleeping on the cot at night.

But things were looking up. This morning Doris McDonald had told him that Adele had been inquiring about the women who worked at the Red Queen and the Black Knight and why she thought men enjoyed the company of such women. Reno figured there was only one reason why Adele would be interested in those gals and that was because she thought he was spending his time with them.

“She’s jealous, bless her stubborn heart.”

“Say what?” the telegrapher asked, peering at Reno through the thick lenses of his glasses.

“Oh, nothing. I was talking to myself. Did you send that message?”

“Sure did. You waiting for a reply?”

“No.” Reno paid the man, adding a bit extra.
“Much obliged. If there is a reply, I’m staying at—”

“The depot restaurant,” the man finished for him. “I know who you are. Everybody knows.”

Reno grinned. “Guess I’m famous.”

The bespectacled man laughed sarcastically. “Kings and fools always make for good gossip.”

Wishing he could take back the extra money he’d given the smirking telegrapher, Reno swept his hat off the counter, wedged it onto his head, and left the small office.

This town was hard to figure. Some of the people were gems, like Mrs. McDonald and Paul Green, and some were mean as snakes, like Terrapin and Yancy Stummer and Buck, the hired gun Terrapin had brought to town. Green, the banker, was right about Whistle Stop being at a crossroads. It could become either a nice town to live and raise a family in or the next Deadwood or Dodge City. Everything depended on what class of people took hold of it. If Terrapin continued to rule, Whistle Stop would be good for nothing but losing money and dying young.

“
Psst! Psst!
Mister!”

Reno stopped in his tracks and looked around. At first he saw nothing, but then movement in an alley caught his eye, and he stepped cautiously between the two buildings flanking it. A petite blond woman emerged from the shadows. Reno smiled, recognizing her.