An Agent for Phoebe

by Nerys Leigh

  He stifled a smile. She was funny. “Well, now you do, so just make sure you don’t get attached.”

  She lowered her eyes to the file again. “I’ll do my very best to avoid throwing myself at you.”

  He had a sudden vision of that happening. Much as he didn’t want to be married, he didn’t hate it. After all, Phoebe was a good-looking woman, and he was a man.

  He decided to change the subject, before he thought about it too much. “While I’m here, we should go over a few things about how this training is going to go.”

  “Oh?”

  “First of all, I’m your training agent, so I’m in charge. I will expect you to do as I say.”

  She closed the case file and rested it on her lap, folding her hands on top. “I was very specific about not vowing to obey you.”

  “This isn’t about marriage vows, this is about following my instruction because I’m the experienced agent. If you do something wrong, you could endanger both our lives.” And he wasn’t going to let that happen again.

  “What if you do something wrong and endanger our lives?”

  “That won’t happen. I’ve been a Pinkerton agent for seven years. I know what I’m doing.”

  “If you say so.”

  He chose to ignore that. “Second, if we do encounter any danger, let me handle it.” She seemed like a woman who would fight if she had to. That was the last thing he wanted.

  “What if you can’t handle it?”

  “I will. I’m proficient in both armed and unarmed combat. Now, do you know how to use a gun?”

  Her reply was immediate. “Yes.”

  “How good are you?”

  “Very.”

  He smothered a smile. Maybe he’d challenge her to back up her claim one day. He’d welcome the opportunity to take her down a peg or two. “Do you have your own weapon?”

  “I do. Would you like to see it?”

  He shrugged. “Sure.”

  It was probably some ancient single shot pistol that had belonged to her father or late husband. Good enough for what it was but completely impractical in the field if they encountered a situation where she’d have to fire more than once, or hit anything smaller than a cow.

  She rose from the chair and walked to the chest of drawers across the room. Opening the top drawer, she pulled out a revolver. His mouth dropped open.

  He quickly snapped it shut as she returned and handed the gun to him.

  He took the Smith & Wesson Model 3 .44 Russian almost reverently. It was so shiny that it must have been brand new, not surprising since the Model 3 had only been out for a few months. It was beautiful, and much nicer than his own revolver. He wondered if she’d let him shoot it if he asked. Just a few times, to see how it felt.

  “Does it live up to your requirements?”

  He tore his gaze from the exquisite custom silver inlay in the shape of a stylized dove on the black grip. “Uh… yes. This is, um, more than adequate.”

  “I should certainly hope so.”

  She held out her hand and he reluctantly handed the revolver back. There was a certain injustice that she should own such a beautiful weapon while he only had an ancient Lefaucheux. Of course, there was nothing wrong with his gun and it had served him well over the years, but hers was just so much… prettier. One day he’d have enough money all at once to afford one.

  “Mr. Hays?”

  He blinked, jerking his gaze from the drawer where she’d replaced the revolver. “Hmm?”

  “I said, do you have any more questions for me?”

  “Oh, right. Yes.” What she’d called him nudged the back of his mind. “I think you can call me Jonah, seeing as we’re married. Phoebe.”

  She seemed to consider this. “I think I’d prefer to keep calling you Mr. Hays. Plenty of women address their husbands formally in public. No one will think it’s strange. And you may call me Mrs. Wel…” She sighed. “Mrs. Hays.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we may be married, but we’re barely acquainted. And I plan on keeping it that way.”

  He didn’t want to be acquainted any more than she did, so he wasn’t sure why that annoyed him so much. “As you wish, Mrs. Hays.”

  She nodded. “Is there anything else?”

  “I guess that’s all for now.”

  He’d planned on finding out her strengths and weaknesses so he could plan his training strategy accordingly, but he suddenly wasn’t in the mood. He could do that while they were on the case. They were hardly likely to encounter much peril in the search for a missing accountant.

  She rose and moved to the still-open door in an obvious order for him to leave. “It was a pleasure talking with you, Mr. Hays.”

  He followed her to the door. “Likewise.”

  He had no doubt that neither of them meant it.

  He walked out and she closed the door behind him.

  The woman he’d just married obviously hated him. This case couldn’t go fast enough, as far as he was concerned.

  Chapter Three

  The train lurched to a halt.

  “Please tell me we’ve arrived,” Phoebe muttered.

  Jonah looked through the window of what they laughingly called the passenger car. “Yup, this is Black Hawk.”

  “Oh, thank goodness.”

  The freight train had taken an hour to get them from Denver up into the Rocky Mountains, to the town of Black Hawk, with nothing to sit on but a wooden bench and nothing to protect them from the steam and wind but, well, nothing. There was no glass in the windows of the only railroad car designed for people, and it was the first behind the tender.

  She probably looked like she’d been rolling in soot.

  The other unfortunates in the car, all miners, as far as she could tell, began to rise and make their way to the exit. Jonah stood and reached for her carpet bag. She grabbed it before he could. They may have been legally married, but in all other ways she was still a free woman, and she would behave as such.

  Shrugging, he picked up his own bag instead.

  She rose to her feet, resisting the urge to rub some feeling back into her posterior. Every single bump on the journey had transferred with perfect efficiency up from the wheels to the railcar to the hard bench.

  “After you, ma’am.” The man who had been sitting opposite her, eyeing her for the entire trip, gave her a gap-toothed smile and swept his hand towards the door.

  “Thank you.” She ignored the way his roving eyes made her skin crawl and stepped into the aisle ahead of him.

  As he made to follow, Jonah pushed in front of him, muttering, “Pardon me,” as he forced the man back.

  The man glared at him but not too obviously. Jonah had at least five inches and twenty pounds on him. Phoebe would never have admitted it, but in this case she was grateful for her temporary husband’s presence. The last thing she wanted was attention from any of the miners.

  Once outside and away from the sound of the train, the first thing she noticed was a constant thumping and cracking and grinding that echoed from the surrounding peaks. And then there was the smell. She raised one hand to her nose in a futile attempt to stifle the acrid tang hanging in the air.

  At least there were buildings, many of them constructed of brick. She’d harbored a secret fear the mining town would be nothing more than a collection of tents and shacks.

  “What is that noise?” she asked Jonah as he walked up beside her.

  “The stamp mills. They crush the ore to make it easier to extract the gold. They don’t call Black Hawk the City of Mills for nothing.” He pointed to a huge building hugging the side of the gulch in which the town sat. “That’s one.” His eyes moved to the hand over her nose. “The smell is from the smelters. They extract the gold that the stamp mills can’t get at.”

  She grimaced, lowering her hand. “How do people live here?”

  “I guess they get used to it.”

  She wasn’t sure she could ever get used to such conditions. “What n
ow? Do we find a hotel?”

  He gave her an amused look. “Places like this don’t have hotels, they have boarding houses.”

  “Fine, do we find a boarding house?”

  “Yup.” He headed for the small building housing the ticket office without waiting for her.

  She glared at his back as she followed, trying not to limp as the feeling gradually returned to her behind. Her eyes dropped to his backside. How was he not feeling the same? He’d been sitting on the same hard bench she had. Surely he was numb too.

  Suddenly realizing where she was staring, she snapped her eyes up. What if he’d looked back and seen her? She was going to have to watch her every move while with him. She didn’t want him getting the wrong idea about their marriage. Not that he seemed to have any so far. He’d barely spoken to her since they left Denver that morning.

  Which was good, she reminded herself, because there was no need to get to know him in the least.

  He spoke to the clerk at the ticket office window briefly and then returned to her. “He says Bowen’s Boarding House is on the next street over.”

  Bowen’s Boarding House. That name was familiar. “Isn’t that the place where Ralph Baker was staying?”

  “It is.”

  “And we’re going to stay there?”

  “If they have room.”

  She had to admit, it was a clever move. It would make investigating easier. “You know, you’re not as dense as you look.”

  “Stop, you’ll make me blush.”

  Bowen’s Boarding House was a three story wooden building in a row of similar houses, several of which advertised rooms for rent. It appeared fairly well kept, with curtains in the windows and neatly trimmed shrubbery beside the front door.

  An older man answered Jonah’s knock. Phoebe would have put him in his late fifties, with white, thinning hair and a weathered face that had obviously seen a lot of work. Perhaps he’d started out in the mines and moved to running a boarding house when the work became too hard. She wondered why he’d stayed around at all. She already wanted to leave, and she’d barely been in Black Hawk for fifteen minutes.

  “Morning,” Jonah said with an amiable smile. “My wife and I are in need of some accommodation, if you have any rooms available.”

  “I sure do. I’m Walt Bowen. Come on in.” He led them into a parlor at the front of the house and took a ledger from a shelf. “How long will you be staying?”

  While Jonah spoke to Mr. Bowen, Phoebe studied a framed photograph hanging on the wall. A group of men stood in front of the entrance to a tunnel, some of them leaning on shovels and pickaxes. A crude wooden sign nailed to one of the wooden support beams read ‘William Mine’. A photo hanging beside it displayed a similar composition but different men and location. There were thirty-three photographs in all, each with a different mine.

  “We’re all set,” Jonah said behind her.

  Absorbed in studying the photos as she’d been, she hadn’t heard him approach. She turned to see him holding a key.

  One key.

  Singular.

  “Where’s mine?” she asked.

  “Your what?”

  “My room key.”

  He held up the key. “Right here.”

  She frowned at him. He was being intentionally obtuse. “Then where’s yours?”

  He waggled the key. “Also right here.”

  Surely he didn’t expect them to share a room? “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  “I’m joking.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re lying, aren’t you?”

  “Yup.”

  Glancing at Mr. Bowen writing in the ledger at a desk over on the other side of the room, she lowered her voice to a hiss. “I demand you get another room, right this instant.”

  One eyebrow rose in that annoyingly condescending way he had. “You demand?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Sorry, I can’t.”

  She was tired, sore, and rapidly becoming very, very angry. “Can’t? Or won’t?”

  He opened his mouth for a reply, but she’d lost any interest in hearing it.

  Snatching the key from his hand, she marched up to Mr. Bowen. “Sir, my husband has made an error in only requesting one room. We actually require two.”

  He looked at her then moved his eyes beyond her to Jonah.

  She slapped the key onto the desk. “Two rooms. Please.”

  “Sorry, can’t,” he replied.

  Were they in cahoots? “I beg your pardon?”

  “I can’t give you another room.” He nodded at the offending key. “That’s the only one we have and you’re lucky to get that one. Lots of men in town looking for work right now.”

  It took her a good five seconds to force a polite smile. “Thank you for your time.”

  She spun around and marched past Jonah, heading for the stairs.

  He caught up with her at the second floor landing. “I tried to tell you.”

  “No you didn’t.”

  “I did.” He paused. “Sort of.”

  The number six was etched into the wooden tag attached to the key. She came to a halt at the door marked six and thrust it into the lock. “Maybe next time you could use actual words.”

  She pushed the door open and walked inside, coming to a halt at the sight of the only bed in the room. A double bed.

  There was a very long, very pregnant pause.

  “I’m not sleeping on the floor,” Jonah said, placing his bag onto the table.

  “Did I say anything about the floor?”

  “You were thinking it.”

  She didn’t answer, because she was.

  Taking a slow breath in and out to calm herself, she looked around the room. A small table, two wooden chairs, a washstand, and an old chest of drawers. And, of course, the bed.

  “Maybe he has a spare bed he could bring in here,” she said.

  “I doubt it.” She turned to look at him and he threw up his hands. “Fine, I’ll go and ask. I don’t know how I’ll explain away needing two beds when we’re supposed to be married, though.”

  “You could tell him you toss and turn so much in your sleep that you keep me awake.”

  He trudged past her into the hallway. “Or I could tell him you do.”

  She walked to the bed, placed her bag down, and sat. At least it was soft. Maybe she’d even be able to sleep.

  Jonah returned after a couple of minutes. “He doesn’t have any spare beds. But thank you for sending me down there; I now feel thoroughly emasculated.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  He moved his bag onto the bed beside hers and opened it. “We’re going to share the bed.”

  He set about unpacking his clothes.

  Phoebe looked from him to the bed and then around the room, just in case another bed had miraculously appeared. It hadn’t.

  She opened her mouth and then closed it again. What would she say?

  “You can sleep on the floor, if you like,” he said.

  She’d never slept on the floor in her life. Riding up here in the train on a hard wooden bench had been bad enough. “I think not.”

  “Then it looks like we’re sharing the bed.” He raised one eyebrow. “Just be sure to keep your hands to yourself.”

  If he did that with his eyebrow much more, she was going to shave the thing off. “Don’t worry, your virtue is perfectly safe. Assuming you have any.”

  He pushed his empty bag beneath the bed. “I’m as virtuous as the next man.”

  “In my experience of men, that isn’t saying much.”

  “Then you’ve met all the wrong men. Hurry up and unpack so we can go find some lunch. I’m starved.”

  ~ ~ ~

  After they’d unpacked, they went in search of lunch.

  Mr. Bowen gave them directions to a restaurant not far away. As they walked outside, Jonah offered Phoebe his arm. It took her by surprise. Despite his constant presence, she kept having to remind herself
she was married to him.

  “No, thank you,” she said.

  Shrugging, he lowered his elbow.

  She berated herself for being disappointed that he hadn’t at least tried a little harder before giving up.

  Apart from the incessant noise from the stamp mills and unpleasant odor from the smelters, Black Hawk appeared to be a fairly civilized little town. Brick and mortar businesses fronted the main street and they passed two general stores, a dry goods store, and even a millinery. There were also several saloons with billiard parlors, but in a town with a predominance of men, that was no surprise. They passed both women and men, however, and even some children.

  Phoebe looked up at a white-painted church with a low, square tower sitting a little up the gulch. Really, Black Hawk was like any other small town, if one ignored the noise and smell.

  The restaurant Mr. Bowen had directed them to was a modest but pleasant establishment, with white painted walls and checked tablecloths. A smattering of customers hunched over meals, but with the lunch rush having passed, there were plenty of free tables.

  “We’ll pay the local marshal a visit after we eat,” Jonah said after the waitress had taken their orders. “It’s always a good idea to let the local police know you’re investigating in their jurisdiction when you start a case. Professional courtesy. Unless you’re investigating them, of course. Sometimes they’ll even help, although not too often when we’re working an open police case. They think of us as stepping on their toes.”

  She watched a group of older boys walk past the window. “I can see their point of view.”

  “So can I, but we still have a job to do.”

  She returned her gaze to him. “Do you enjoy being a Pinkerton agent?”

  “I guess so, most of the time.”

  “Just not right now?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “But you didn’t want to train me, or marry me. Is that because you don’t think women should be Pinkerton agents?” If he didn’t, she was ready for an argument.

  The question appeared to amuse him. “Not at all. I’ve met a lot of female agents. Worked with some of them. And they’re every bit as capable as us men.”

  That was something of a surprise. “Then why were you so vehemently opposed to it?”