Deborah Camp (9 page)

“Little Nugget, isn’t it?” He glanced around. “Who are you hiding from?”

“Nobody,” she said, but she seemed nervous. “I was wondering about Dead-eye Doris. How is she doing?”

The young woman’s concern for her friend touched Reno. Something about Little Nugget tugged at his heart. Her youth, probably, he thought, and her lost innocence. She should still be with her mama and papa, not working for trash like Terrapin in a whorehouse saloon.

“Mrs. McDonald is fine. You should come on by the restaurant and visit her. I’m sure she’d be plumb tickled to see you again. You two are good friends, aren’t you?”

“We used to watch out for each other.” She bobbed her narrow shoulders. “I miss having her around. She was always good for a laugh, you know.”

“Then come by sometime. Any time.”

Little Nugget released a soft, sad laugh. “Hell’s bells, I could never do that. Your missus would bust outta her corset if I showed up in her restaurant, bold as brass.”

“What makes you think that? Has she said something to you to give you that idea?”

“No, nothing like that. I’ve never said a word to her or her to me. It’s just that …” She glanced down at her gloved hands, twisting, twisting, and she swallowed hard enough for Reno to hear. “She’s a lady and I’m—not.” Her gaze swept up to his, defiant and shining with inner fire.

“But you’re Mrs. McDonald’s friend, and your money spends the same as anyone’s. I’d wager that Dellie wouldn’t care if you came by to share a cup of coffee and a piece of pie with your old pal.”

“Dellie? Is that what you call her?”

He nodded. “I’ve known Adele Bishop since she was in pigtails.”

“I didn’t know that.” She sized him up, her gaze quick and cunning. “You reckon she wouldn’t mind if I showed up?”

“Shoot, no.” He tapped a knuckle gently under her chin and made her smile. “She’s not as straitlaced as you think. In fact, I bet she’d hire you if you needed a job.”

Her eyes narrowed and she stepped back. “I don’t need a job. I got one.”

“I just thought you might want a different job. It would be great working with Mrs. McDonald again, wouldn’t it?”

“I gotta go.” She started past him, but he snagged her arm and stopped her. “Let go.”

“What’s your hurry? You scared?”

“No. I got things to do.”

“Does he own you?”

Her chin trembled and a muscle ticked in the corner of her mouth. “Nobody owns me.”

“Then you must love him.”

“Him? Who we talking about here? God?”

“Maybe you think that highly of him, but I don’t.” Reno leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Terrapin. You love him, do you?”

She wrenched her arm from his grasp. “No. Why’d you think that anyway?”

“Because I can’t see a pretty, smart girl like you staying with a skunk like him unless you owed him money or you were crazy in love with him.”

“You think you got me pegged, do you?” The muscle near her mouth ticked faster. “I can make more in one night than Doris makes in a whole week, beating that bread dough, so I don’t think I’ll be tying on an
apron any time soon. I’m doing just fine, cowboy. Just fine.”

“You’re not as smart as I thought,” Reno said, letting his gaze slip contemptuously over her face. “If life is so fine for you, how come you’re slinking around in alleyways and wishing you were respected enough to drink a cup of coffee with an old friend at the depot restaurant?”

His words stung. He could tell that by the way her eyes narrowed and then watered before she moved backward into the shadows. He knew their chat was over and she wouldn’t hear anything else he had to say to her, so he dipped his head in a silent farewell and returned to the boardwalk that fronted the buildings. He looked back once and saw her crossing the street, one gloved hand holding her skirt above the mud, the brim of her stylish hat hiding her profile from him.

The image of a lady, he thought, watching her. He’d met his fair share of whores and he’d known only a handful who actually liked the night life. Little Nugget wasn’t one of them. Any gal who wore spotless gloves and a fashionable hat in a town where everyone knew her for a whore wasn’t cut out for a life of hard knocks and shame. She had too much pride and she still had dreams. To Reno’s mind there was hope for her.

Withdrawing his watch from his vest pocket, he checked the time and grinned. Dellie and her crew would be in between meal servings. Time to stir up the pot again, he decided with a wicked chuckle. He’d turn up the flame a little bit while he was at it. Dellie needed a sample of what she was missing at night,
then she’d be more interested in where he was keeping himself every evening.

Yes. Things were looking up.

Adele walked over to the man who sat alone at one of the tables and wondered what had brought him to the restaurant. Sure wasn’t the coffee or the atmosphere. Taylor Terrapin never came calling unless he wanted something. She hoped this wasn’t about Doris McDonald. But if it was, she was prepared to cut him off.

“You want to speak with me, Mr. Terrapin?” she asked, her tone frosty.

He had risen from his chair at her approach and now he offered up a polite smile. “Miss Adele, it’s so very good to see you today.” His high-pitched voice grated on her. He motioned to the other chair. “Won’t you join me?”

“I suppose I can spare a few minutes.” She sat down, straight-backed, and with an edge of impatience. She’d rather be scrubbing greasy pots in the kitchen than sharing a table with Taylor Terrapin, but she told herself to be civil. “Is there a problem you wish to discuss?”

He shook his head. “Now why would you leap to that conclusion?”

“Because you never dine here.”

“True, but I have a business to run, same as you. Surely you can understand how difficult it is to get away.”

She nodded and folded her hands on top of the table, waiting for him to get to the point.

“How do you like being married? Do you believe you’ve chosen the right man?”

She stiffened. Was this about Reno? “Has my husband run up a gambling debt?”

His brows arched and a calculating expression crouched in his eyes. “Sounds as if you don’t know much about your husband’s comings and goings. Actually, your husband has only been in my gaming hall once.”

“Once?” She shook her head, having trouble digesting this latest revelation. If Reno wasn’t gambling every night, then where was he keeping himself? She noticed that she no longer had Terrapin’s full attention. He was smiling across the room at Sally. “What about your saloon? Has he been there? Is this about a bar bill he’s run up?”

Terrapin jerked his attention back to Adele. “No, no. I haven’t come here to dun you for money, although your husband is at the root of my visit, I must admit.”

“What have you come to say, Mr. Terrapin?”

“Is Dead-eye Doris working today?” He glanced around the nearly empty restaurant. “She was certainly a popular item at the Black Knight.”

“Mrs. McDonald is my cook and works in the kitchen. I’m very happy to have her here.”

“I’m glad you’re happy, but I spoke to your husband about how unhappy I am over the way she was hired. He failed to understand my position, but I trust you have more intelligence. You see, Miss Adele, I have a reputation in this town I have worked hard for and I won’t have anyone diminishing it. If you
wanted to hire Doris, you should have spoken to me first.”

“Is that so?” Adele arched a brow and her temper simmered. The audacity of the man, acting as if he had a right to speak for Mrs. McDonald! She leaned back, distancing herself from him.

“Your husband hired one of my most valuable girls right out from under me without so much as a please and thank you. I’m not used to such shoddy business practices, and, I trust, neither are you.”

“What I’m not used to and what I shall never be used to is a woman being treated as chattel.”

Sally chose that moment to join them, coffeepot in hand. “May I offer you more, sir?”

Terrapin eyed Sally with relish. “How have you been, Mrs. Baldridge? I just don’t see enough of you.”

“I am as well as can be expected, Mr. Terrapin. Thank you for asking.”

Was it Adele’s imagination or was that a rosy blush on Sally’s cheeks? And her voice was so soft and demure. Horror of horrors! Could Sally actually be flirting with Taylor Terrapin? Adele shivered with revulsion and hoped her friend had better sense. Sally moved the coffeepot closer, but Adele placed her hand over the cup in front of Terrapin.

“Let’s save that for our paying customers, Sally.”

Terrapin and Sally gave her twin arch looks.

“I assure you, Miss Adele, that I intend to pay for this cup of coffee,” he told her, his tone dangerous, like the rattle of a snake’s tail.

“I can’t accept your ill-gotten gains, Mr. Terrapin,” Adele said.

Sally gasped, on the verge of apologizing for
Adele’s rudeness, so Adele spoke up first.

“Mr. Terrapin has come to scold me for hiring our new cook, Sally.”

“That’s not what I meant to do,” Terrapin corrected her. “I simply wanted to talk to you about acceptable business practices. You, being a woman, aren’t familiar with how things are done in the course of commerce.”

“And what would you know about an acceptable business?” Adele charged, tipping her head to one side in an inquiring manner. Inside, she thrilled, giddy with her courage in the face of such serpentine menace. “You run a whorehouse dressed up as a saloon. That’s not acceptable to any right-thinking, God-fearing person.”

Sally made a sound of displeasure behind her, but Adele didn’t care if she offended Terrapin. He offended her by having the temerity to question her methods when he was nothing but a black plague let loose on Whistle Stop.

“Is that what Doris told you?”

“I haven’t discussed you with Mrs. McDonald. Besides, no one has to tell me what you do at that place of yours. It’s common knowledge.”

Terrapin drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “Your husband has had a bad influence on you, I fear.”

“He has nothing to do with this. I have never approved of your business, and you well know it.”

“I don’t interfere with your operation here and I expect—no, I
demand
that you extend me the same courtesy.” He leaned forward; she thought of a striking snake. “There are plenty of women in this town
for you to hire. Don’t come stealing any more of mine, and keep your husband away from my gaming hall and saloon. Next time he pulls a gun on me, I’ll have him drawn and quartered and dumped on your doorstep.” He stood, jerking at his vest and snatching his hat off the rack by the door. “Good day, Miss Adele.”

“That’s Mrs. Gold to you, sir,” Adele sassed him, almost automatically, because her mind was wobbling with what he’d said. Reno had pulled a gun on him? When? Why? And where in heaven’s name was Reno spending every evening if not at the saloon or gaming hall? Had he already found himself a mistress?

“How could you speak to him like that?” Sally demanded, breaking into Adele’s troubled thoughts. “If you want this place to succeed, you can’t insult the town’s most prominent citizen.”

Adele blinked and realized that Terrapin was gone and that Sally sat across from her. Balling her hands into tight fists, Sally pounded the table in frustration.

“Taylor Terrapin could help us, Dellie. He has money and power and everyone respects him. What if he does hire loose women?” She shrugged, as if the practice were insignificant. “They come to him of their own free will. He doesn’t force them to work. If you’re going to disapprove of someone, what about that cook? Why, she’s slept with nearly every man in town and yet you treat her as if she were as pure as the Virgin Mary!”

Sally’s back was to the kitchen, but Adele saw the swinging door edge out and back. She figured that Doris McDonald was listening in and had probably been eavesdropping ever since Terrapin had entered the restaurant.

“For the life of me, I can’t understand how you can defend that piece of cow dung,” Adele said. “Terrapin might not force those women to work for him, but he exploits them, nonetheless. The spider does not force a fly into its web, but it devours that fly all the same. Our society leaves few choices for unmarried women, and men like Terrapin certainly take advantage of that.”

“Oh, you sound like your mama.”

“Good!” Adele said. She stood. The kitchen door eased shut again. “I think Terrapin is cheeky to stride in here and try to intimidate me.”

“I heard what he said to you, Dellie. He was trying to advise you about your lout of a husband. Obviously the man has made a nuisance of himself around Mr. Terrapin. I heard something about a gun.”

The front door opened and Reno strode in, effectively ending Sally and Adele’s spirited disagreement. He grinned at them, cocky as a rooster in a hen house.

“Hello, ladies. What’s cookin’?”

“Trouble, that’s what, and it has your footprints all over it.” Adele motioned him to follow her. “I’d like to speak to you alone for a minute.” She went into her quarters, but he followed more slowly. He closed the door softly behind him and grinned at her.

“Now what?” he drawled with deliberate insolence. “Have I been naughty again? Do you have another list of chores for me that I have no intention of doing? When are you going to get it through that hard head of yours that I’m not your new mule?”

“I have been extremely tolerant of your behavior,” Adele said, trying hard to keep a cool head. Her hands were shaking and she picked up a throw pillow
to hide the tremors. “But I would like a straight and honest answer to one question, if you can manage that.”

Reno shrugged and threw out his hands in an open challenge. “Hit me, darlin’.”

Adele chewed on the inside of her cheek, tempted to haul off and wallop him. His smirk was back. It symbolized what she thought was happening all over town behind her back.

Something snapped within her, and before she could check herself she cocked her arm and hammered Reno’s head with the pillow.

“Hey, hey!” He grappled with her for the harmless weapon and wrestled it from her. “What’s wrong with you?” His hat, knocked askew by her attack, slipped the rest of the way off his head and fell to his feet. “Have you gone loco, Dellie?”