Tomorrow's Dreams (16 page)

Without waiting for her response, he continued, “Since you're so set on having the mewling Mr. Prescott serve as your escort, I'll be a gentleman and bow to your desire. But only on one condition.

“Which is?” Penelope asked. His wily expression was definitely making her uncomfortable.

“If, for some reason, Miles should be unable to act as your escort, you'll promise to allow me the privilege. Agreed?”

Penelope let out a long sigh of relief and nodded. Since Miles had never once failed to do his duty, there should be no problem agreeing to Seth's terms. That bit of business concluded, she signaled to the pharmacist.

When Seth made no move to leave, she made an impatient noise. “I thought you had business elsewhere,” she pointed out, rudely. “Was there something else you wanted?”

He shrugged. “Not from you.”

Before she could voice her tart retort, the pharmacist appeared at her side with her purchases. As he handed her the parcel, he instructed, “Give your baby a half teaspoon of the tar and honey preparation every two hours. If his croup doesn't ease a bit within a day, increase the dose to a full teaspoon.”

Seth's eyebrows shot up at the man's words. “Baby?”

“One of the girls at the Shakespeare asked me to buy medicine for her baby,” Penelope lied, hating herself for having to deny her son. Sure that her face perfectly reflected her guilt, she lowered her head and busied herself with her reticule. “How much do I owe you?” she asked the pharmacist.

“One dollar and forty-five cents.”

As she reached out to pay the man, Seth stayed her arm. “If the woman's baby is ill, it should be tended by a doctor.”

Penelope couldn't have agreed more. However, since that was impossible, she replied lightly, “It's just the croup. The baby isn't seriously ill.”

Seth shook his head, unconvinced. “Be that as it may, it still wouldn't hurt for a doctor to examine the child.”

“I'll relay your message to the mother.” She tried to jerk her arm from his grip, but he held firm.

“And ask the mother to let me know if the child's condition worsens. Tell her I'll be glad to pay the doctor's fees.” With that he dropped her arm and nodded to the pharmacist. “Please add the cost of the lady's purchases to my bill.”

Penelope felt an unwilling surge of admiration for Seth. In a world full of people who gave little or no thought to the plight of needy women and their children, Seth showed he cared. Not that she should be surprised. Everyone in San Francisco knew that he had a soft spot in his heart for children.

As she put away her coins, she heard the pharmacist reply, “My pleasure, sir. However, in order to add to one's bill, one must run up a bill. You haven't purchased anything.”

“Yes. Well, I do have a problem I'd like to discuss.”

Penelope glanced up in surprise. Seth was the healthiest person she knew. So much so, that her sister-in-law had often teased him that if all her patients had his constitution, she'd have to take up embroidery to fill her time.

“Of course.” The pharmacist nodded, his expression serious. “What are your symptoms?”

“My—” Seth paused and glanced down at Penelope, his eyes gleaming with the devilry she knew all too well. Leaning nearer to the pharmacist, he replied in a loud whisper, “I've been riding too much, and my backside is all raw and chafed.”

Embarrassed, Penelope dropped her open reticule, spilling the contents across the floor.

“A common problem to newcomers,” clucked the pharmacist. “I have a salve that should fix you right up.”

As the man went to get the salve, Seth crouched down to help Penelope retrieve her belongings.

“Really, Seth!” she scolded, fumbling with a coin. “Have you no decorum? Surely you know better than to discuss your backside in front of a lady!”

He stared at her from beneath his lowered lashes, fingering her lucky ribbon, which had landed on the toe of his boot. “I'd hardly call it decorous behavior to eavesdrop on a personal conversation between a man and his pharmacist.”

“You know damn well I wasn't eavesdropping!” she shot back, grabbing the ribbon and stuffing it into her bag.

He chuckled and handed her her bottle of smelling salts. “You have your—”

“—definitions and I have mine,” she cut in. “So you insist on reminding me.”

Just as she was jerking her reticule shut, the pharmacist reappeared. Presenting Seth with a large blue jar, he instructed, “You'll need to massage a liberal amount of this salve into the sore area every morning and every evening. Perhaps your wife can help you, considering where you need it applied.”

An unholy grin curved Seth's lips at the man's suggestion. Tossing Penelope a meaningful glance, he drawled, “Oh. I'm not married. However, I'm sure my valet will be more than satisfactory at performing that duty.”

Chapter 11

Seth was a man who was used to getting what he wanted. What he wanted now was to know what Penelope was doing in Denver.

It's my duty to find out
, he told himself, urging his horse around the corner of Holladay Street and onto Fifteenth.
She's obviously in some sort of trouble, and as her brother's best friend, I'm obligated to see to her welfare
. Which was his reason for demanding that she act as his valet: to keep her close so he could see to her safety.

He snorted at his feeble excuse.
Right. And they'll be canonizing me any day now for my altruistic acts and pure thoughts
. He let out another snort.
Admit it, Saint Seth. You bullied her into being your valet to satisfy your own selfish need to be near her. You did it because you still love her
.

It was true, no matter how he tried to deny it. He loved Penelope. And as he knew too well, love was dangerous. It robbed a man of his senses and made him dare anything in its name.

If I'm smart, I'll jump on the first train out of town and get away from her before I do something stupid
. His lips curled with self-contempt. As if running away would do any good. It hadn't worked before, and it wouldn't work now. Besides, after the shabby way he'd treated her in New York, he owed it to her to at least see to her safety. Unlike New York, this time he intended to do the honorable thing.

Ha!
his mind jeered.
Let's see just how long your noble intentions last once Penelope starts her duties. You're mad as a March hare if you think you can remain impassive while she performs the intimate tasks required of a valet
.

Seth groaned as he guided his horse onto Blake Street. Sweet Jesus! He
was
mad! How else could he explain proposing a bargain that would thrust him in such close quarters with Penelope?

Love
, he reminded himself.
Crazy, impetuous love
. Add that to the lust he felt every time he so much as heard her name, and it was no mystery why he'd made the crack-brained deal.

He clutched the reins so tight the leather cut into his palms. How the hell was he supposed to keep up his charade of disdain when his sex sprang to attention like a sergeant saluting a major every time the damn woman simply glanced at him? If he wasn't mad now, his unrelieved lust at being near her would quickly drive him to the brink. God! What was he going to do?

What you're going to do, Seth, my randy friend
, he commanded himself, stopping in front of the Shakespeare and sliding from the saddle,
is get your mind from between your legs and back on business where it belongs … before you forget your true purpose for coming to town. As for Penelope, your only concern with her is to deliver her to her brother safe and sound
.

And in order to do that, he'd have to make sure she didn't come to harm while in Denver, which brought him back to his initial question: what was she doing here? More perplexing yet: how was he going to find out?

Wincing with every step, Seth hobbled over to the hitching post, stoically resisting the urge to massage his saddle-sore backside as he went. As he paused to stroke his palomino's muscular neck, he pondered his dilemma. Questioning the actors was out. He'd promised Penelope he wouldn't, and he'd keep his promise, just as he intended to make sure she kept hers.

Her promise
. He absently transferred his soothing ministrations from his horse's neck to his abused buttock. She
had
promised to answer a question a day. Maybe he should simply ask her what she was doing here.

He dropped his hand from his backside, chuckling at the absurdity of the idea as he began hitching his horse to the post. He could just imagine the kind of response he'd get if he were to ask that particular question point-blank. Despite her promise, the evasive Miss Parrish would probably give him one of her vague, offhanded excuses, and then attempt to change the subject by provoking him into an argument. And her ploy would work.

He gave the reins a final tug to test his knot. After all, nobody provoked him more than Penelope Parrish did these days.

And in more ways than one
, he added silently, unwillingly remembering his body's carnal response to her nearness as he had freed her from the ridiculous gravity defier.

Cursing himself for a lecherous fool, he stepped stiffly from the street and up onto the boardwalk, only to find himself in front of a playbill. Below the caption,
LORELEI LEROUX, TOAST OF THE WEST
, was a drawing of a plump woman wearing a vapid expression and little else. If Seth hadn't known better, the picture would have led him to believe that Penelope had had a significant increase in girth and a complete decrease of wits. Grinning, he pushed his way through the swinging saloon doors.

It was late afternoon, and the Shakespeare was almost deserted … the lull before the storm of miners, cowboys, and sodbusters blew into town for a whirlwind evening of merriment.

By the staircase a tight cluster of saloon girls whispered among themselves, occasionally emitting a flurry of high-pitched giggles. Sitting alone at a table along the far wall, his powerful body hunched over a bottle and his scarred face partially masked by the lengthening shadows, was a man whom Seth had heard Floyd refer to as One-eyed Caleb. At a gaming table in the right corner, four men sat smoking and playing cards. Standing behind one of the men was Adele du Charme.

After greeting a girl who sat at the square piano listlessly picking out the tune “Daisy Dean,” Seth headed to where Monty was polishing the already gleaming mahogany bar.

When the bartender caught sight of him, he waved his grubby dust cloth in welcome. “
Buenos días
,” he greeted in badly accented Spanish, his smile wide beneath his waxed mustache.

Ignoring the pain radiating from the muscles in his thighs and buttocks, Seth gingerly hooked his heel on the brass boot rail and leaned against the counter. “How's business, Monty?”

“Dead as old Leroy over there.” Monty jabbed his thumb to where a stuffed grizzly bear stood posed menacingly on its hind legs. In a fit of drunken whimsy, someone had put an empty whiskey bottle in old Leroy's paws and balanced a beaver hat gaily festooned with an Independence Day ribbon on his head.

Seth chuckled. “That bad, huh?”

Monty squinted at a smudge marring the otherwise immaculate wooden counter. “Seein' as how it's Saturday, I reckon it'll pick up. My guess is that you won't be able to get within a mile of this bar by nine o'clock.” With that prediction, he rubbed at the offending spot with varnish-stripping fury.

“Then, I guess I'd better have my drink now,” Seth said.

Monty glanced up, his blue eyes twinkling with devilry. “Eager for another snort of Red Dynamite, are you?”

Seth stifled a groan. “That stuff made me feel like I'd downed a lit kerosene lamp. I was up all night with a bellyache.”

The bartender clicked his tongue between his teeth. “Sorry. Must've been one of my weaker batches.”

“Weaker batches?” Seth felt the gall rise in his throat. “I'd hate to taste what you call a strong batch.”

“I've got a fresh bottle if you wanna give it a try.”

Seth's stomach rumbled ominously in reply. “I think I'll take a rain check. What else do you suggest?”

“Let's see, now.” Monty rolled one pointy end of his mustache between his fingers as he considered the options. “Seein' as how you're havin' belly problems, you might wanna try some Grizzly Bear's Milk. My granny swears it cures her dyspepsia every time.”

“Grizzly Bear's Milk?” Seth eyed the bartender suspiciously. “What's in it?”

“Half a glass of milk and a handful of sugar mixed with two fingers of raw whiskey.”

Seth's stomach gurgled so loud, he was sure it could be heard all the way to Cheyenne. No wonder the mortality out here was so high! Resolved not to join the legions of unfortunates pushing up prairie grass, he asked, “Don't you have anything less—exotic? Say, some plain Kentucky whiskey, for example?”

Monty reached beneath the bar and produced an almost-full bottle of the requested beverage with a flourish. “Ask and ye shall receive,” he quoted solemnly. “Mr. Prescott was havin' me save this for him”—he emitted a grunt as he wrestled the cork free—“but seein' as how he's taken a likin' to the Weddin' whiskey, I doubt he'll miss it.”

As he set a glass in front of Seth and poured a healthy ration, he confided, “You might want to try the Weddin' whiskey yourself if you ever get a mind for some fun.” He winked suggestively. “Makes a man go all night and into the mornin'… if you catch my drift. Mr. Prescott swears by it.”

Seth's eyes narrowed with speculation at the bartender's casual reference to Miles Prescott. Having spent his fair share of time in saloons, he knew that men talked when they were in their cups. And the person they usually talked to was the bartender. That being the case, it was possible that Miles had said something to Monty about Penelope. With that odds-on chance in mind, he ventured, “Miles is a frequent customer?”