Independent Brake (The Dominion Falls Series) (2 page)

Either way, the man was a sight that turned many a lady’s head, proper or no. To have such a man, a rake, a letch, whatever he may be, pay Katherine any mind had its own flattery. She rather enjoyed the attention, and didn’t discourage it as much as she likely should considering his sort of business.

Ashamed that such thoughts should dare to cross her mind, Katherine tried to again reclaim her wits as Cole stopped just near her foot. “May I assist you in some way, Mr. Mitchell?”

“Fine looking horse ya got there.” Cole’s lip curved into a knowing smirk. “You enjoying your bribe?”

Heat rushed to her cheeks and she narrowed her eyes. “I beg your pardon?”

“Blizzard. She’s a bribe with a hell of a price tag. You did know that, didn’t ya?”

“Blizzard?”

“The horse. That was her name when I was training her. Why, what did ya name her?” He chuckled. “Let me guess. Somethin’ real pretty like Snowy or Princess.”

Her short, angry huffs of breath formed into steam in the cold air and she lifted her chin to hide the way she had to blink back her tears. Rather than tell him what she’d named the horse she spoke through her clenched jaw. “
You
trained her?”

“Of course. Who else is gonna train a horse in this camp? Especially a wild one like this beast was.” He rubbed the horse’s flank and nodded. “I knew she was going to you, though, so I kept a little wild in her. I think ya got some wild in you that ain’t been unleashed yet too.”

“I think you’re speaking far too inappropriately.”

“Fifteen is the right age. Can’t tell ya how many women find themselves then. Got three girls now that are near-sixteen. Besides, your parents are marrying you off at fifteen. Guess it ain’t so inappropriate after all.”

“I am not a whore, nor will I be.” She drew up straight, trying to process what he’d said. “And my parents aren’t marrying me off so young.”

“It ain’t so young. And yeah, they are.” He shrugged. “What do ya think the horse is for?”

Katherine pondered the quiet conversation she’d witnessed back at the house. The timing of Powder’s arrival didn’t make her a gift for birthday or Christmas. The talk of going to Denver permanently, and the courting she’d been forced to take part in when they did visit.

“So your Pa didn’t tell you yet.” Cole clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Such a shame too. Gonna waste your whole life on a marriage of convenience.”

“What do you know of marriage anyhow?” Katherine tried to put venom into her tone, but instead it trembled dangerously close to tears. “My parents’ marriage is good.”

“I know more’n you’d think, and your parents eloped. Heard from your Pa himself, they liked each other. You got a guy you like, Kathy?”

“My name is Katherine.”

“I like Kathy. Suits ya better.”

On Katherine’s left a door slammed open. Her sister, Martha, stormed into the street. Her light brown hair had begun to gray already after the stresses of the past two years. It flew out of her bun in unruly strands as she rushed toward Katherine and Cole. “Cole Mitchell, you get on away from her! Katherine Marie Daugherty, what do you think you’re doing speaking to the likes of him?”

“This is all
your
fault, Martha.” Katherine spat the words before she could think too hard on what she was saying. “And I have always spoken to Mr. Mitchell. It’s polite.”

“Katherine! How is it my fault you’re speaking with a man that keeps loose women. You know he only wants to make you one. I’ve heard him saying it.” Martha narrowed her eyes at the man who only grinned in response.

“I’d bet anything he’s said such things because you eavesdrop and you are impossible.” Katherine swung out of her saddle and dropped right down onto the frozen street to meet her older sister’s angry stance with one of her own. “All of this is your fault. The horse, the arranged marriage. All because you couldn’t keep your legs together around a damned red man.”

“Katherine!” Martha’s jaw dropped, and Cole’s laughter rang through the street, drawing more attention their way. “You’d best watch your—”

“I will not! You are the cause for my whole life changing.” Tears burned at the back of Katherine’s eyes as the full weight of what Cole had suggested hit her. To be married off to a virtual stranger, to lose even more of the life she loved here in Dominion Falls. It was more than she could take, and she snapped. “Because of you, everything is changing. Don’t you dare tell me to be silent because it’s all your fault. You left a good man to be a whore to a red man—”

Katherine’s cheek stung seconds before she registered Martha had slapped her. She clasped her hand over the sore cheek and stared at Martha.

“Hey now.” Cole stepped out from under Powder’s neck and positioned himself in front of Katherine. “Don’t go beatin’ your sister for bein’ honest.”

“I’ll have you know,” Martha began, “that she is a child. She shouldn’t be saying such things when she knows nothing about them.”

“She’s no child. Your parents are gonna have her wed before the end of the year if they can, just so she don’t mix with riff raff. And she’s got a point. Wouldna happened if you hadn’t taken up with an Injun.”

“Lewis is emancipated.” Martha all but hissed, her hand twitching like she was going to slap him too. “Practically white.”

“Only with his paint on, Martha. Ain’t no way he’s ever gonna be one of us.”

Katherine backed up, but bumped into Powder. Married by the end of the year? That was barely over two months away. It couldn’t be. She spun and gripped the pommel to lift herself back into the saddle. Before she got far, she was lifted the rest of the way and Cole slapped Powder’s flank over Martha’s protests.

Without time for even a nod of gratitude in Cole’s direction, Katherine leaned over and let Powder race her out of town toward the small settlement of homes starting to sprout up south of town. She didn’t dare go too far for fear of Indians, but she would run until she found somewhere to hole up and think.

She couldn’t get married. Not now. Not in Denver.

She’d barely begun to live.

* * * *

K
atherine sat cross-legged on her bed, picking at a loose thread in the quilt her mother had made ages ago when she still did such menial tasks. The quilt was now as worn as Katherine’s hope, but a stubborn flame of rebellion flared in her belly.

There was no good reason to be treated this way. She wasn’t like Martha, she never had been, and yet her parents were going to do everything in their power to change the course of her fate. She tried to slouch and pout, but her corset refused her even that bit of bend.

With a wince, she adjusted the confounded contraption and readjusted the way she sat instead. A knock at the door made her push aside her attempts to plan a way out of her current situation.

“Katherine. It’s time for supper.” Her mother didn’t bother to open the door. Propriety stood that Katherine should join them.

“I’m not hungry.” Childish, most likely, but right then Katherine didn’t want to face her parents. Of course, her refusal would probably bring about that very situation.

“I didn’t ask if you were hungry.” The door opened and Lillian stepped into the room with her unhappiest of expressions. “I stated that supper was ready, which means you’ll join us.”

“And I told you, I’m not hungry. I don’t wish to dine with you.” Katherine turned her back on her mother and rose to her feet.

“Katherine. I won’t tolerate such behavior. I am still your mother, and you will do as I say.”

“You’re treating me like a child.” Katherine lifted her chin and took a few steps closer to the window. “And yet you expect me to be wed before the end of the year.”

For a moment the silence lingered, and confirmed every rumor. Her mother got her wits about her fast enough, though. “We were hoping to discuss our plans over supper.”

“Well we’re discussing them now.” Katherine turned to face her mother. “To whom have you decided to sell me?”

“You aren’t being sold. Don’t be so ridiculous.” Her mother took one step as if to storm through the room as she once had when upset. Instead, she gathered herself up all proper again. “We want to be sure you are cared for and want for nothing.”

“Who, Mother?”

“Benjamin Lawson.”

The last bit of hope for a good future she’d held onto sputtered and died. Her heart shriveled up and dropped into a sick pit in the bottom of her stomach. Of all the suitors her parents had allowed courtship with, Benjamin was the most boring, mind-numbing rotten apple of the lot.

“He’s well-to-do. You’ll have your home to run, and time for leisure. Your children will be set for their lives.”

“Leisure? I don’t want to tea with the women I’ve met there. Their lives are boring. There is no color, there is no life.”

“There is life everywhere in the city. Far better than the chaos and crass amusement those around here tend to. They survive on liquor and whores. There are more men than women and they are nothing like men we should associate with.”

“They’re the men you associated with for years. You played cards with Hammy.”

“It’s Mr. Hamm,” her mother corrected with snap of her fingers. “I’ll have you remember your place.”

“I’m sorry; it’s so easy to forget when just two years ago I was able to associate with any of these people freely. Before you sequestered us in this house away from the riff raff you once called friends.”

Her mother’s eyes widened and her nostrils flared before she folded her hands across her stomach. “What’s done is done, Katherine. Mr. Lawson is a good match.”

“For you and Father. But what of me? What of love?”

“Love has little place—”

“It had
every
place for you and father! You eloped with him.” Katherine turned and planted her palms against the cold window, and quickly followed the action up with her forehead in an attempt to cool herself and her temper.

She felt no triumph over her mother’s surprised silence, only her own sense of defeat. Out in the paddock Powder sprinted away from the stable hand trying to get her into the stable as the first snowflakes drifted down.

Her soft sigh left a cloud of steam on the window, blurring the image as her joy was now fogged in oppression. “I am not Martha.”

“Of course you aren’t. We’ve ensured—”

“No. I wasn’t Martha before you began this pursuit to make us the toast of Denver society. You didn’t have to sell me into this life to keep me from the life Martha chose.”

“Again, we haven’t sold you. Don’t make this out to be like slavery. You haven’t the faintest idea what—”

“You offered my hand to the man with the greatest bank account. You expect me to be a prim and proper wife which, until Martha took up with an Indian, you never were. I remember what it was like before, Mother. While you did try to improve this camp with a library and a church, you weren’t this person in front of me dictating my life.”

“We all have choices to make. I’m sorry you don’t like all of mine, but there is nothing to be done now. You’ll see when you’re old enough to understand and have children of your own. This is what’s best.”

“And when you’re old and gray sitting around with nothing but one daughter married to an Indian and no grandchildren, you’ll see this was the worst choice you made. I won’t give him children. I don’t even want his slimy hands touching me.”

“Katherine Marie, proper women don’t speak of such things!”

Katherine closed her eyes and bit her lips to cover her rising chuckle. Until this moment she’d never realized how much she didn’t want to be a proper anything. She took a deep breath and gathered her calm. Perhaps if she gave in, for now, her mother would let her guard down and Katherine could plan. Plan what, she didn’t know, but she knew she had to plan something. “When do you plan to leave for Denver?”

“Two weeks. Your father has business to wrap up. His new foreman is doing well, so we see little reason to linger for the worst of the snows.”

“What about the lack of a stagecoach? Mr. Hamm says none has been around for three weeks.”

“We’ll have transportation. Never you mind that. Now chin up, join us for supper.”

Katherine straightened up and tugged her bodice taught across her corset. First course of action would be to belligerently agree to the plan. Then she had to find someone to assist her. She had no idea what to do or where to go, but she knew she couldn’t go to Denver.

A prim and proper life would never suit her. She had too much of Dominion Falls in her heart and spirit. One way or the other she would find a way to get out and figure out what she was meant for.

Cole was right about one thing.

No longer would she be a child.

* * * *

P
oor Hammy.

He’d fought her tooth and nail. Katherine had been forced to make promises and swear on nothing short of a bible to get him to agree to help her. Between swearing she wasn’t turning herself in to become a soiled dove and that she wouldn’t cave to Cole’s considerable charms, she only prayed she wouldn’t let the sweet old Mr. Hamm down.

Certainly, the last thing in her plans was to be a whore.

No, she had a tiny bit of a plan to get out of Dominion Falls, but she’d need help. Anyone else in town would tell her parents. After all, her parents owned most of the camp’s land and anyone with a vested interest tended to kowtow.

Not Cole.

It was risky to put any trust in a man in his business, but she had little choice.

The back door of the saloon cracked open. Hammy stepped outside, the same displeased furrow in his brow as when he’d gone in the front. For some reason Cole liked Hammy more than most of the men in town, and gave him alone the freedom to disturb him before business hours.

Katherine ducked through the fence of Cole’s corral and ran toward the gate. “Well?”

“He’s comin’.” Hammy’s harsh whisper cut through the cold wind. He paused at the gate and pulled it open when she got close. “I don’t like this. Not one bit. He seemed real eager to see ya.”

“It’ll be fine, Hammy. You’ll see.”

Movement in the door Hammy had left open pulled Katherine’s attention away. Cole’s tall frame filled the doorway before he slipped outside. Despite the temperatures the man didn’t wear a coat; only boots, trousers, and a unionsuit that left little to her young mind’s imaginings.