An Unlikely Lady (6 page)

No. She'd not sell the ring unless she had
absolutely no other choice. It was all she had left of Deuce. That, and a puzzle she had yet to understand.

So now, the only thing left to do was to find a suitable escort.

She certainly couldn't ask Jesse, not after last night. The journey would takes weeks—even months! She didn't doubt for a second that he would expect her to indulge him whenever the mood struck. And given the way she turned to mush every time he so much as looked at her . . . well, that was just asking for trouble.

Who else was there, though? Honesty wondered, fighting back discouragement. If she could make the journey on her own, she would. Unfortunately, Deuce's vagabond lifestyle had taught her early on the perils a woman faced in a world ruled by men. And since his death, she'd learned firsthand that traveling alone was just plain foolish. As much as she wished otherwise, she needed protection. She needed a
man.
Someone strong enough to keep danger at bay, yet manageable enough to control. Jesse was strong enough, that she didn't doubt. But manageable? She shook her head. He didn't strike her as a man anyone easily controlled.

Or was he?

If only she knew more about him—where he was from, what he did for a living, what kind of friends he had . . . what did she really know of
Jesse Jones, other than that he had the face of an angel, the charm of the devil, and a body as inviting as sin?

Maybe he was just a rambler, as he claimed; he had that look about him. Yet there was something more, an unleashed power, an untamed aura she couldn't define . . .

Oh, her decision would be so much easier if the man wasn't so much a mystery.

Or so much a temptation.

A sudden rumbling in her stomach rescued her thoughts from venturing once again into forbidden territory. Knowing that Rose would be expecting her to help with the midday meal, Honesty folded the map, capped the money jar, and returned both to their hiding spot before venturing out into the hallway. Her steps slowed as she passed by the open doorway to Jesse's room. The bed was neatly made, the clothes gone, his saddlebags missing.

With a curious frown she sought out Rose and found her sitting alone in the main room of the saloon, scratching on a tablet with a pencil. “Where's our guest?”

“You just missed him,” Rose answered without looking up. “He left about ten minutes ago.”

He'd left? The bottom dropped out of Honesty's stomach. “Where'd he go?”

“Said he was goin' to check on his horse.”

“Is he coming back?”

Rose shrugged. “He didn't say and I didn't ask.”

A strange emptiness spread through her, which made no sense. She should be glad he was gone. It had been hard enough waking up beside him; seeing him after her story of unbridled passion would not only have been awkward, but downright foolish.

“He seemed mighty taken with you, though,” Rose said with a smile in her voice.

Honesty glanced quickly at Rose's bent head and fought a surge of panic. “Did he say something?”

“Nope. But he was askin' all kinds of questions about you.” She peered up at Honesty and her mouth twitched, as if holding back a grin. “I don't know what you did, but it sure left an impression on him.”

Honesty averted her gaze. She didn't want to think about what Rose would do if she ever learned how she'd “handled” Jesse. And if Jesse ever found out how she'd duped him . . .

A sliver of guilt crept into her conscience. Drugging a customer, then playing it off afterward hadn't bothered her any other time she'd been forced to do it; why should it bother her now? She'd been trained to play on human weakness; it had been ingrained since she could remember. The one time she'd given in to a
weakness of her own, she'd paid the price—with her father's life.

Fresh grief welled up at the memory, and Honesty pushed it to the back of her mind, then slipped into the chair across from Rose. Strands of her golden-red hair had escaped their pins and fell about her shoulders. Honesty couldn't tell if Rose had recently woken up or if she'd not gone to bed at all. “What are you doing?”

“Trying to turn coal into gold,” Rose said, scribbling something in one of the books before her. “That damned Eli Johnson is going to be the end of me yet. First he steals my girls, then he steals my customers, now he's about to steal my livelihood.”

Contrition instantly rose up inside Honesty. Lately, she'd been so focused on her own problems that she hadn't given much thought to the struggles Rose faced in keeping the saloon's doors open. Eli Johnson owned the Black Garter, a bordello that sat directly on the stage route a few miles east. He'd been sweet on Rose once, but when she didn't return his affections, he swore he'd make her regret spurning him. Evidently, it was working. “Are things that bad?”

“Put it this way—if I don't figure out some way of drumming up business soon, I'll be closing my doors.”

Sometimes Honesty wondered if maybe that
wouldn't be the best thing. Her father always said, “Life is like a horse race: sometimes ye draw a quick mount that'll take ye far, and sometimes ye draw a plug. If that happens, ye don't waste time kickin' a dead horse; ye look for a fresh mount.” She supposed that was why they never stayed in one place very long. He'd always promised that they'd settle down one day, but the promise only lasted until a fresher, faster horse came along. And before Honesty could unpack her bags, they'd be off again.

It used to be exciting—new horizons, fresh adventures, greater opportunities . . . it never mattered where they went, they'd had each other. If over the years she'd found herself yearning more and more often for a place to call her own, she only had to remind herself what would happen if their illicit past caught up to them.

And one of the things she admired about Rose was her determination to stay in the race, no matter how high the odds stacked against her. Now, though, Honesty wondered if the woman wasn't kicking a dead horse. “Rose . . . don't you ever dream of something more than this?”

The pencil froze in mid-scribble; she glanced up from her books. “More than what?”

“Being here. Living like this. Not that there's anything wrong with the Scarlet Rose,”
Honesty hastened to add. “But haven't you ever dreamed of something more?”

“What do you mean?”

Honesty shrugged. “I don't know. Sometimes I dream of a place. It's green, and blue, and so beautiful it takes my breath away.” Unbidden, an image of Jesse rose in her mind, his eyes green as a meadow one moment, stormy blue the next, and glittering with such raw, naked hunger that the memory alone had the power to clench her stomach and quicken her heartbeat. That look, that longing, had awakened a curiosity she'd buried long ago—what would it be like to share herself with a man? To give herself to him heart, body, and soul, from first breath to last?

“Sounds like paradise,” Rose said.

Abruptly Honesty shoved the foolish whimsy aside and leaned forward, clasping her hands on the table. “I've never been there, that I can recall. I can feel it pulling at me, though, in my dreams . . . calling my name . . .”

“But something holds you back.”

Honesty nodded.

“I used to have dreams like that all the time,” Rose softly admitted. “Mine were like fairy tales. Prince Charming, castles in the sky, people throwing flower petals at my feet . . .”

“Don't you have that dream anymore?”

An unladylike snort blew through the air.
“Dreamin' is for pretty young skirts like yourself, not frayed old garters like me.”

“You're not old, Rose.”

“I'm twenty-five, and I've done a lot and learned a lot and lived a lot in those twenty-five years.”

More than most, Honesty suspected. Though Rose was only five years older, life had hardened whatever soft edges she might once have had. Once again, Honesty was reminded of how much her father had protected her over the years. “What about love, Rose? Did you ever love during those years, too?”

She looked suddenly ancient and weary. “More than any woman should have to, darlin'.”

Again sympathy nearly choked her. Rose once told her she'd gotten into the business after becoming involved with a man of questionable reputation. When he'd left her, she'd turned to the only means of survival available to her at the time—working in the Black Garter for Eli Johnson. When silver was discovered in the nearby hills, Rose used every penny she'd managed to save over the years to buy a plot of land and build the Scarlet Rose. For a while, Last Hope and the Scarlet Rose had thrived.

“Maybe there's a reason business isn't what it used to be,” Honesty suggested. “Maybe Fate is
giving you a chance to reach for your dream, but you have to give up the Scarlet Rose to get it.”

“Oh, no.” Her jaw took on a familiar stubborn set. “I helped found this town, and I built the Scarlet Rose with my own two hands so I'd never be dependent on a man again. I'll be damned if I let some no-account like Eli Johnson force me into giving up this place without a fight.”

Honesty refrained from pointing out that whether Rose wanted to or not, her success depended on men—for without them and their baser needs, there would be no reason for places like the Scarlet Rose to exist.

But she was hardly in any position to judge, when she was sitting on the same two-edged sword. Wasn't she counting on a male to keep her safe in her quest to find the truth?

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Rose laughed. “Start prayin' for a miracle—or we're both sunk.”

No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the front doors opened and Jesse filled the room with his presence. “Ladies, it looks like you'll be stuck with me a bit longer than planned.”

“W
ell, look what the wind blew in,”
Rose drawled. “I thought we'd seen the last of you.”

“So did I.”

“That horse of yours still gimpin'?”

“Unfortunately. It's not too serious, but I'd rather not take any chances.”

“Well, the two of you are welcome to stay as long as you need. I'll even have Honesty put clean sheets on your bed,” she added with a wink.

His gaze slid to the woman sitting next to Scarlet, her hands clasped tightly in her lap, those glossy dark blonde curls he'd buried his fingers in last night tied with a ribbon and falling freely down her back. From the moment
he'd walked into the saloon, she'd avoided looking at him; the expression on her face puzzled him. Was she hoping he'd stay, or praying he wouldn't?

“Honesty, would you mind dishin' up Mr. Jones a plate of those biscuits and gravy I left on the stove? The man's bound to have worked himself up an appetite.”

As if waiting for any excuse to escape, Honesty jumped up from her seat and fled to the kitchen.

“So how long you think you'll be staying with us?” Rose asked after he'd taken a seat in the chair Honesty had vacated.

“It's hard to say. I do need to send a telegram, though. I'm running a bit short on funds and if I'm going to stay here, I'll need to wire for more.”

“Not from around here, you won't. The telegraph office closed down six months ago, the hotel a month before that, and the post office burned down last year when Skeeter Malone decided to see for himself if gunpowder really did explode.”

Wonderful. A lame horse, less than two dollars in his pocket, and no way to wire the agency for more. At Rose's prices, he had enough to cover lodging for a night or two, but that would leave him nothing for supplies. Even if she could afford it, his pride wouldn't
allow him to ask for a room on charity. “Then I'll just have to find myself a job. I'm good with cattle and horses. Good with my hands, too.”

“I don't doubt that,” she countered with bawdy humor. “Unfortunately, there's not much call around here for a man of your abilities.”

“What about here? Maybe you've got something that needs doing?”

“Sorry, sugar.” She dashed his hopes again. “I've already got more hired hands than I do jobs. My uncles, Joe and Jake, take turns coining down from the mountain to help with the heavy work, and Honesty handles the day-to-day chores.”

His shoulders slumped. Normally he wouldn't have given a second thought to sleeping on the ground under the stars, but the weather was turning ugly. And the prospect of that soft bed upstairs had just been too appealing to resist. He refused to consider that a particular brown-eyed beauty might have anything to do with his longing to stay here.

As if thinking about her could make her appear, she emerged from the kitchen, a cup of coffee in one hand, a plate piled high with fluffy white biscuits smothered in white gravy in the other. Jesse didn't realize how hungry he was until she set the food in front of him. When was the last time he'd sat down to a meal?

“I'll be upstairs if you need anything, Rose.”

And before Jesse could thank her, she was gone.

“I wish I could help you out, Jesse, but the truth is, I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel to get by as it is. The only thing I need is more business, so unless you've got piano playing in that bag of tricks—”

He stopped in mid-chew, swerved around, and for the first time noticed a dusty black object tucked in a corner by the stage. The bottom seemed to fall out of his stomach, and an old, familiar resentment flared in his gullet.

“Do you play?”

Years peeled away in Jesse's mind. He'd been five years old the day the piano had arrived for his mother, and he'd sat down, felt the keys beneath his fingers, and played Mozart. No one, least of all him, could explain how or why he was able to play an instrument he'd never set eyes on before, or to recognize the notes of his mother's favorite song. The music instructors his father hired soon after called him a prodigy. A musical genius.