Midnight Lover (6 page)

"How about you, Miss Bennett?" Margaret asked. "Shouldn't take a pretty girl like you more'n a week to hook a man."

Jenny gave her a knowing look. "If you ain't betrothed by the time you reach the boarding house, then there ain't no hope for none of us. The sooner we get you taken care of, the sooner the rest of us can have our pick."

Caroline took note of the sharp, assessing look Jenny's sister Sarah was giving both her and Abby, and the openly hostile murmurings of the McGuigan girls.

"I'm not looking for a husband," she said. The surprise on their faces was something to behold.

"You already married?" Margaret asked.

Caroline shook her head.

"A widow then?" asked Jenny.

"I'm going to Silver Spur to claim an inheritance."

She was spared having to go into the sordid details of Aaron's death by a sharp rap on the roof of the stagecoach.

"Silver Spur one mile ahead," the driver called down to them. "Last stop!"

The chatter died as quickly as it had been born. Jenny and Sarah took turns drawing a heavy tortoiseshell comb through their thick manes of shiny red hair. The McGuigan girls helped one another tighten the laces on their calico dresses and tie on matching bonnets.

"I feel as if I should rouge my cheeks or curl my hair," Caroline whispered to Abby as the others went about their makeshift toilettes. "They're acting like brides on their wedding day."

Even Penelope Nelson, the reverend's skittish wife, was primping in front of a tiny looking glass Margaret had lent her.

Abby chuckled softly. "And why should you be any different? You heard what they said: the men are probably linin' the streets waitin' to claim their brides, sight unseen."

It was Caroline's turn to laugh. "Surely you do not believe that claptrap, do you, Abby? Someone has been selling these girls a bill of goods. I seriously doubt Silver Spur to be the haven of matrimony they say it is."

Caroline was about to relate some of her father's stories about Silver Spur when Abby pointed out the window. "Look!"

Caroline cleaned a small circle of glass with the heel of her left hand. "Men!" she breathed as they entered the town. Men as far as the eye could see.

Men in torn and dirty overalls lounged in the doorway of the Silver Horseshoe Eatery and Ben's Emporium and Dry Goods Store. Men in large-brimmed hats tilted down over their foreheads straddled horses larger than any Caroline had ever seen before. The men were old and whiskered; the men were young with faces smooth as a babe's. They were tall and short and fat and thin and everything in between.

They were every spinster's prayer come true.

The stage rattled past a cluster of men near a place called the Golden Dragon and Penelope Nelson nearly fell off her seat staring at the women in their bright red dresses who lounged on the porch, sipping cool drinks and fanning themselves while they flirted with the men.

For the first time since she left Thomas Addison behind at the railroad station in Boston, Caroline wondered what on earth she'd gotten herself into. She hadn't figured there would be quite so many men—or that they would look quite so dangerous.

"Will you look at them?" Sarah Wilder scrambled closer to Caroline and pointed out the window. "I bet they don't come like that in Boston, do they?"

Two men—one, tall and clad in shamelessly tight-fitting breeches and a fringed rawhide waistcoat, the other in coveralls—leaned casually against the railing of the Golden Dragon.

"Will you look at them?" Abby whispered to Caroline. "Just waitin' there as fine as you please, as if they were first in line at the butcher shop."

Not even her own Crazy Arrow Saloon across the street could draw Caroline's gaze away from the man in those wicked breeches. It was a wonder he could draw a breath in them, much less walk. They were the most scandalous thing she'd ever seen in her entire life but, heaven help her, she felt as if she would rather die than turn away.

"It would seem they're eager for brides," she managed finally, drawing in her breath as the man looked up and tipped his hat in the most arrogant of fashions. A shock of dark hair fell across his forehead and she had a fleeting glimpse of eyes bluer than the skies overhead. He seemed to be looking right at her in a way so possessive, so powerfully male, that her hands began to tremble.

Quickly she sat back down and busied herself with pulling on her pale grey kid gloves. Her cheeks burned with some strange emotion she didn't dare identify. This wasn't why she'd come to Silver Spur. Let the McGuigans and the Wilders and even Abby go husband-hunting; she had more important things to do.

The coach stopped and they waited while the driver clambered down from his perch in a flurry of mumbled oaths, then dragged a wooden step stool over to the passenger door, his one concession to the ladies on board.

"Well," said Margaret McGuigan, "from here on it's every gal for herself."

"You'll dance at my wedding," said Jenny Wilder, "or I'll know the reason why."

There was no turning back now and Caroline knew it. Boston was her past and, like it or not, she was about to meet her future head-on. Straightening the collar of her dark blue traveling suit, she winked at Abby. "I'll dance at your weddings, if you'll promise to have the wedding party at my saloon."

There was a long, shocked silence.

"That was a fine joke, Miss Bennett," said Reverend Nelson, patting his bride on the arm. "Your own saloon, indeed."

"You had me goin'," said Margaret, gathering up her belongings while the stagecoach driver grumbled. "A saloon owner! You!"

Jenny laughed out loud. "You look like a gal from a fancy finishin' school. Everyone knows saloon owners ain't women."

Caroline reached for the Moroccan leather bag and accepted the driver's hand. "Come by the Crazy Arrow Saloon tonight, ladies—" she turned toward the Reverend and gave him a saucy smile "—and gentleman, and find out."

Summoning up everything her father had ever taught her about pride and independence, Caroline stepped down from the coach with Abby nipping at her heels.

Late afternoon sun blinded her and her arm instantly went up as a shield. The hot dry air that rose from the dirt road carried the smells of whiskey and tobacco, of horse and bay rum, and the combination made her stomach lurch. Abby covered her nose with a scented hanky, much to the amusement of the two men leaning against the railing.

"This ain't nothin'," said the smaller of the two as they started across the street toward the coach. "Just you ladies wait 'til July."

Abby groaned and the Wilder sisters made equally horrified sounds. Caroline remained impassive even though she could scarcely imagine how this godforsaken place could smell any more foul than it already did. The prospect of adding the stench of perspiration just didn't bear thinking about.

A group of bedraggled cowboys who had been watching their arrival from the porch of a hotel appropriately named The Last Stop joined the man standing near Caroline.

"Puny haul, ain't it?" one asked. "Usually them coaches are packed to the rafters with 'em."

Laughter mingled with the sound of a scuffle in The Last Stop.

"Ain't many left back there," said another. "They've all come out here to rope a man."

Abby, who had been pointing out Caroline's trunks to the grumbling driver, whirled around. "And left because there weren't a man to be found in the whole miserable lot of you!" she spat at the growing number of men ringing the stage and its passengers.

The McGuigan and Wilder sisters gasped, no doubt envisioning their dreams of wedded bliss evaporating in the harsh Nevada sunlight. The shorter of the two men who had been leaning against the railing loped toward Abby. Caroline's eyes had yet to adjust to the vicious glare but she had the impression of compact strength and steely determination. He stopped a few feet from the maid.

"You meanin' to tell me you ain't here to find yourself a husband, little lady?" Abby had the classic Irish temper and wouldn't hesitate to use her fists, outcome be damned. Caroline stepped forward and faced her maid. "Abigail," she said, her voice quiet but stern, "don't you have other duties to occupy your time?"

"My sainted mother would turn in her grave if I be lettin' that sorry excuse for a man insult you like that."

"Insult me?" Caroline's voice rose in surprise. "I can fight my own battles, Abby." She motioned behind her with a toss of her head. "The day one of those unwashed ruffians can insult me, I'll—"

"You'll what?"

A different voice. Lower, deeper, more intimidating. She spun around. With the sun backlighting him as it was, she couldn't make out the cowboy's features but somehow she knew it was the man in the skintight breeches.

"This is a private conversation, sir," she said brusquely. "If you don't mind..." She let her words trail gracefully away and turned back to Abby. Men in Boston had always responded instantly to her cool dismissals. "Come, Abby."

Abby, however, had forgotten Caroline's very existence. Her maid's eyes, and the eyes of their traveling companions, were focused squarely on the arrogant, rude cowboy she'd just dismissed.

"Abigail." Caroline raised her voice to be heard over the scuffle that had spilled from the hotel into the street beyond them, "if you would please help the driver find our trunks, we can be on our way." More than anything, she wanted a long, relaxing bath and a meal served on china plates instead of those horrid metal bowls found in most of the rail-stop outposts they'd dined in along the way.

The fighting in the street was spreading closer to them. She reconsidered. A bath would be lovely but perhaps her first goal should be reaching the Crazy Arrow alive. The
stagecoach ride through Indian Territory hadn't seemed nearly so dangerous as just standing at the depot at Silver Spur.

From one of the saloons nearby she heard three quick gunshots and, despite the fact she would rather die right there on the spot than show it, fear began to shake her resolve. She gathered her courage around herself. If she cried in front of anyone it would be Abby and it would be in the privacy of her own room, not there on some filthy Western street in the middle of nowhere surrounded by derelicts and desperadoes and women hungry for a man, no matter what the cost.

"Hurry, Abigail," she said, her voice sharp. "Certainly it shouldn't be taking you this long to find our trunks."

Again that masculine voice from behind her. "Didn't nobody tell you Yankees that slavery is over?"

"I beg your pardon?" Caroline turned halfway toward him; she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of facing him head-on. Besides, the glare from the sun made it difficult for her to see him, putting her at a distinct disadvantage, something Caroline detested.

"I said, slavery's over, ma'am." He slurred the last word in a fashion so sarcastic that her palm itched to slap him. "Should I tell your servant?"

"She's not my servant," Caroline snapped. "She's my employee and I'll thank you to mind your own business." Picking up her skirts, she stepped off the curb. "Now if you'll just step aside..."

He didn't.

He moved closer and, despite the glare, she caught a glimpse of angular cheekbones and skin tanned the color of burnished gold.

"You have a mighty sharp tongue for a spinster lookin' for a man."

Everyone was watching her: Abby and the McGuigan sisters and the two Wilder girls and every filthy cowboy in Silver Spur. If she backed down now all of her dreams for the Crazy Arrow would be over before they began. Aaron may have been a pawn of fate but she'd be forever damned if the same thing happened to her.

"Please move out of my way," she repeated.

"Not much point," he answered, his voice a low, annoying drawl. "Ain't nothing much here for you."

"I'd thank you to allow me to be the judge of that, Mr.—?"

"Reardon," he said, doffing his hat and sweeping an exaggerated bow. "And you're—?"

Before she could answer, the sickening crunch of fist meeting bone split the air and Caroline gasped as two cowboys, locked in mortal combat, crashed through the window of The Last Chance and landed close enough to spatter blood on her good leather boots. Control yourself, she warned, forcing air into her lungs. You've come this far. Don't fall apart now.

"Mr. Reardon, I'm tired and I'm hungry and I am most assuredly not in the mood to debate the issue with you."

"There's no issue to debate," he said, tossing her words back at her in a wickedly precise imitation of her Boston accent. "What you're lookin' for, we ain't willin' to give."

"And what, pray tell, is that?"

He moved so quickly she didn't have time to think, much less react. One moment he was standing there looking at her, the next moment, she was in his arms. His huge hands spanned her waist as he bent her torso backward.

"Why, you—!"

Her protests were stopped as he bent his head toward her. He was going to kiss her! A complete stranger, a cowboy she'd met just moments ago was actually going to put his mouth on hers and kiss her. What kind of insanity was this? Why wasn't she scratching at his face or screaming at the top of her lungs or withering him with one of her quelling glances that had worked so well back in Boston?