Chasing Rainbows (40 page)

He shoved back his chair and stood. “Certainly, Miss Foster.”

She spun around and marched out through the saloon’s back door. Once they had gamed the privacy of the hotel’s kitchen, she wasted no time in getting to the point. “I hear you’re giving away my liquor.”

So much for Johnny Dill minding his own business, Jake thought.

“I hear you passed out free beer and cigars to the men you were playing poker with last night.”

“I did.”

A note of haughty triumph shone in her eyes. “So you’re admitting it.”

“Absolutely.”

“And just how were you planning on paying for that?”

“I thought running the saloon was my business.”

“Not when it comes to giving away my hard-earned liquor.”

Jake gave her a long, cold look. “I see, You’re giving me completely control — as long as everything I do and say suits you. Is that how it works, darlin’?”

“That’s right,” Annie affirmed, lifting her chin defiantly. “And if you don’t like taking orders from a woman, you can just—”

“How much did that beer cost you?”

“That’s not the—”

“How much?”

“Fifteen cents a glass.”

“And the cigars?”

“Twenty-five cents each.”

“There were five men there, and I bought each of them four glasses of beer, plus a cigar apiece. That comes to a grand total of…” He paused for a moment, adding the figures up in his head. “Four dollars and twenty-five cents.”

“Which is four dollars and twenty-five cents more than I can afford to give away.”

“That’s real smart thinking, Annie.”

“I’m not running a saloon for shiftless gamblers and no-account drifters. If a man wants a drink at the Bella Luna, he’s gonna pay for it. You got that?”

Jake managed to hold on to his temper, but just barely. “Did it occur to you at all that sometimes when a man gets hold of a little liquor and a clean cigar, he starts having a good time? He starts feeling lucky, generous even. He starts feeling thankful for the hospitality and starts betting more. Did you bother to find out that each of those men had been prospecting all summer and most of the fall, and that each of them carried enough silver in his pockets to line Main Street? The house took in over three hundred dollars last night, darlin’, and those men had themselves a damn fine time losing it. They’ll be back to play again. Now, why don’t you show me what you’re doing with this grand hotel of yours to earn that kind of money?”

A heavy silence fell between them. The heat and fire that had filled Annie only seconds ago began to slowly drain away. “I’m sorry, Jake,” she said quietly. “You’re right. I had no call to question you. It isn’t your fault that things aren’t…” Her voice trailed away. She took a deep breath and shook her head, as though clearing her thoughts. “It isn’t your fault.”

Jake nodded, surprised by the apology. He had expected, and perhaps even wanted, more of a fight. He stood in awkward silence, unprepared for the sudden truce.

After a moment, Annie pulled out a chair and sat down at the kitchen table. She picked up a glass vase and began idly plucking the petals off a bunch of daisies.

Unable to stop it, Jake’s gaze moved hungrily over her, as though he had been starved for just the sight of her. Her hair was gathered up in a loose knot at the crown, with soft tendrils cascading down around her face. She wore the old brown calico she had purchased back in Two River Flats, but it wasn’t quite as tight anymore. She had lost weight. Her curves weren’t as pronounced. He looked at her more closely, noticing things he hadn’t seen before. Her skin was pale, and dark violet moons shadowed her eyes. A pinched tightness lingered about her mouth. Her hands were red, chafed raw from scrubbing and hard work. All of which pointed to weeks of work, worry, and very little food or sleep. While Jake told himself that he didn’t give a damn, he found that he wasn’t quite as immune to her problems as he wanted to be.

“How are you, Annie?” he asked.

She sent him a nervous smile and pushed away the vase of daisies. “Fine, Jake, just fine.”

The sound of his name on her lips nearly did him in. “Do you mind if I sit awhile?”

She hesitated, then shook her head. An awkward silence hung between them as Jake took a seat. He felt the same strange, magnetic pull he had always felt toward her. Sitting as he was, only inches away from her and yet miles apart, he experienced a moment of both aching closeness and agonizing loss.

There wasn’t a damned thing in the world about Annie that he would change. Not the color of her eyes, not the silky straightness of her hair, not the soft curves of her body. Nor would he change the way she looked at life: her loyalty and her stubbornness and her determination to do things her own way. Everything about her suited him perfectly. Everything except her involvement with the Mundy Gang.

As he studied her, he was overwhelmed by an almost uncontrollable need to touch her. He wanted to shake the truth out of her once and for all. He wanted to drag her upstairs, turn the lamp down low, and make love to her. He wanted to massage her sore muscles, kiss away her aches and pains, and ease all her worries. But in the end, he sat exactly where he was, unable to bridge the gap that hung between them.

“Is everything all right here?” he asked.

A thin smile flitted across her lips. “Perfect.”

Jake listened, hearing for the first time the echoing stillness that filled the hotel. Glancing through the kitchen door that led to the lobby, he noted that the cubby holes above the front desk that held the keys to the rooms were nearly all full. The restaurant was vacant as well. Obviously the townsfolk weren’t taking to the newly remodeled and respectable hotel as easily as they had taken to the saloon. Then again, the saloon had always been a saloon. Annie was struggling to make a fine hotel out of a run-down bordello. And that was a much tougher proposition.

“It takes a little time, that’s all,” he said.

Annie gave a perfunctory nod. “We’ve had a few customers check in. And that reporter fella is here too. Remember him, VanEste?” She paused, sending Jake a slightly self-conscious smile. “I finally agreed to do that interview he’s been dogging me for. He says that a lady outlaw and five soiled doves running a hotel on their own ought to make a first-class story. He says that with all that publicity, we’ll have so many guests, we won’t know what to do with them.”

“He might be right,” Jake agreed.

“Fact is,” she continued, “if it weren’t for the money you’re making in the saloon, I couldn’t afford to keep this place open for much more than a month.”

“I see.”

Annie gave him a startled, embarrassed look. “That don’t mean I’m asking you to stay. I know you’d just as soon ride out of town as spend another night here, and I can’t say as I blame you. You don’t owe me anything… you were right about that. You were right to say it. Just because we… well, got closer than we thought we would, that don’t mean there are any ties or obligations between us.”

“Annie—”

“No, Jake, let me say my piece.” She took a deep breath, as though forcing herself to go on. “I won’t say that it felt good to hear it, but that doesn’t mean that you weren’t right. The truth isn’t always pretty. I guess what happened between us meant more to me than it did to you. That’s not your fault. I had no right to expect anything of you… or to imagine there was any tie between us at all. You never made me any promises, so I reckon it was just foolishness on my part to think you might have felt something different than you did.”

“Jesus, Annie—” Hearing her ragged confession made Jake feel lower than a kicked dog and doubled his admiration for her. Most women would have been loath to admit that they had given a failed love affair any thought at all, but not his blunt, courageous Annie.

“I’m not claiming any hold on you,” she rushed on. “I expect you had a right to be mad at me. You took one look at this place, and you thought I had deceived you, or just plain tried to trick your money out of you. But the fact is, Jake, I had no idea that The Palace was a broken-down bordello. I truly didn’t. It would mean a lot to me, everything else aside, if you could believe that.”

He nodded. “I believe you didn’t know this place was a brothel.” At least that much was true. As for the rest of his suspicions, Jake supposed they would just have to go on festering inside him.

“Thank you.”

“Sounds like you’ve been doing a lot of thinking on it.”

Annie gave him a rueful smile. “Just about every minute of every day.” She squared her shoulders, assuming a tone that was brisk and businesslike. “Now that that’s said, let’s get on with it. You keeping track of the money I owe you, and taking it out of the saloon profits like we agreed?”

“Yes. You want me to account for that on paper?”

She waved the suggestion away. “I trust you,” she replied, with such utter and complete faith that Jake once again felt a sharp stab of guilt slice through his gut.

As he searched his mind for what to say next, a beam of weak winter sunlight filtered in through the window behind Annie. The light bounced off tiny shards of glass that had been swept up in one corner. Jake frowned, glancing from the pile of broken bits of glass to the newly bare ceiling. “What happened?” he asked, although he already knew. Looked like they’d had another little “accident.”

Annie confirmed it. “That fancy chandelier fell down this morning. Appears somebody snuck in and cut the chain that held it.”

“Anybody hurt?”

“No, thank goodness. The room was empty when it fell.”

Jake was silent for a moment, coldly furious. The pranks were not only cowardly but growing increasingly more dangerous. Had Annie or any of the other women been in the room when the chandelier had fallen, they could have been seriously injured if not killed. “You have any idea who’s behind it — or why?”

She hesitated, then drew a crumpled note from the pocket of her dress and passed it to him. “I found this earlier this morning, just before the chandelier fell.”

He opened the note and read the crude missive.
You scared yet, outlaw womin?

Although Jake’s first thought was of the note he had found in her saddlebags, the writing on this was much worse. Obviously they were not from the same person.

For that matter, Pete would have no reason to threaten Annie or try to sabotage her hotel.

“Have you been getting a lot of these?” he asked.

“I’ve got a whole collection. They started way back with the first little ‘accident.’”

“You see anybody suspicious around this morning?”

“No. But I reckon that someone from town is trying to scare us out,” she said, confirming exactly what his instincts told him. Stubborn determination filled her eyes. “I’m not going to let them win, Jake. I’ve never been one to run from a fight, and I’m not running now. We’re staying put, no matter what happens.”

“You tell the sheriff what’s been going on here?” he asked.

“How much protection you think the sheriff would be willing to give Outlaw Annie and a group of washed-up whores? ’Specially during an election month?”

She had a point, Jake conceded silently. It also occurred to him that if she were still part of the Mundy Gang, the sheriff would be the last person she would want sniffing around the hotel.

Annie stared out the kitchen window, then released a soft sigh. “You think I’m a fool to stay on, Jake?”

He studied her in silence. “I guess that depends on what’s keeping you here.”

She nodded. Her eyes filled with a faraway look. “Dreams, mostly,” she finally admitted with a sigh. “I’ve been dreaming about this place for so long that I reckon I just can’t let it go. And the fact is, the place really isn’t so bad. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a finer piece of land than the one this hotel is sitting on. Whole herds of deer and elk gather at the watering hole after sundown. There’s a field of wildflowers that covers the entire south slope. And the way the sun comes up over the mountains every morning… it just takes my breath away. Plus the building itself is in solid shape. It’ll take more money and time to freshen it up, but I know I can make it succeed.” She turned to face him directly. “You know why?” she asked.

“Why?”

She smiled the first genuine smile he had seen since he had sat down. “Because I’ve got pluck.”

Jake’s heart flooded with an aching tenderness. He smiled softly and nodded. “That you do, darlin’. That you do.”

For a moment, their eyes met, and the familiar energy that had always simmered between them flared to life once again. If they had shared that look back on the trail, Jake wouldn’t have hesitated in pulling her into his arms. But not now.

A look of sad understanding touched Annie’s eyes. “It’s funny,” she said softly, “it seems we’ve come so far together, but now we’re right back where we started. Just a couple of sniffing dogs.”

Silence stretched between them once again. While her words held neither accusation or bitterness, they led in a direction Jake didn’t want to go. Determined to steer their conversation away from such dangerous ground, he asked, “So what are you going to do now, Annie?”

She let out a sigh, then stood and began to pace the floor. “Well, I certainly can’t wait people out,” she said. “I’ll run out of money before they run out of their mule-headed foolishness. I reckon my only choice is to run at them head-on. Get them to meet the girls and me face to face. We’ve been posting flyers all around town for the past week, inviting everyone to a fancy shindig here tonight. I figure that way all the townsfolk can come and see for themselves how we’ve turned the place around. Once they see it with their own eyes, maybe they’ll change their highfalutin ways.”

As far as he could see, the only thing her plan demonstrated was hopeless naiveté. “You really think that’ll work?”

A wry smile touched her lips. “If the reception folks give me back in Two River Flats is anything to judge by, I’d say my chances were a bit slimmer than a blind man’s in a shooting contest. So this time I padded the odds a bit. I let folks in town know that if the girls and I weren’t good enough to pay a social call on, then maybe our money wasn’t good enough either. I sort of let it slip that we could do our buying in Abundance as well as we can do it in town.” She gave a light shrug. “Now it’s up to them, I reckon.”