Prostitution was extremely profitable—a necessary evil in mining towns, where women were in short supply—but it turned Emily’s stomach to hear the ladies discussed as though they were so much horseflesh. “You and Miss Chatterly know more about men’s tastes than I do. Just take care of it, all right?”
“Your daddy’s business didn’t seem to bother you last night, Miss Eliza,” he replied slyly.
Emily glared at him. “I only spend time there to listen for something that could lead me to Papa’s killer. When he’s behind bars, I’m going back to the ranch.”
The bartender’s eyes narrowed, and he looked her over as though for the first time, letting his gaze linger on the braid that curved down across her breast. “Out of respect for your feelin’s, I haven’t mentioned this before now,” Donahue said in a low brogue. “But seein’ how you handled McClanahan makes me think I should tell you about a talk I had with your daddy.”
What was he after, playing on her grief this way? Emily sat back and looked him cautiously in the eye.
Clancy cleared his throat. “You’re a pretty young thing. Turnin’ more heads than you did when your daddy kept you hidden away at the Flamin’ B,” the former hand purred. “He told me, not long before he was shot, that he wanted me to court you when you got a little older.”
He might as well have punched her. Clancy had jumped at the chance to come to Cripple Creek because he and the ranch foreman didn’t get along—and he was built like a bear, so he made the perfect bouncer for the Rose. But let him court her? She’d rather suffer Miss Spickle’s spinsterish fate than feel those bushy cheeks rubbing hers as he pawed at her body.
“Shall we finish this discussion in the buggy?” he asked with a cocky grin.
“I-I don’t think it’s the proper time to—”
“I realize you’re still in mournin’,” he murmured as he leaned heavily upon the table. “But the men at the Rose don’t know that. And the things they say about Eliza’s sassy walk and her pretty little…well, it’d make your ears burn. And if the miners figure out who you are, they’ll jump your bones before you have time to explain why you lied to them.”
Emily’s cheeks prickled with heat and she looked away Donahue was probably right, but she refused to take the cow-eyed bartender’s suggestion seriously.
“Darlin’, this is no town for an unattached woman,” Clancy continued earnestly. “It’ll take time for your feelin’s to catch up to mine, but I’d make you a good man. If you married me, you could get away from the whorehouse—come out of hidin’, and take your rightful place in society. Haven’t I proven I can manage your daddy’s business?”
She knew from the ledgers that it was Victoria Chatterly who did the real managing, but she didn’t dare say so. The barkeep’s eyes were bright and he was stroking his beard repeatedly, as though working himself up for a more direct proposal.
“You could do needlework, and decorate the house, and raise the kids, instead of—”
“Clancy, I’m not ready for any of that,” Emily replied in a strained whisper.
He let out an exasperated sigh. “But surely your daddy explained that without a man, a woman is—”
“Papa always told me I could take care of myself.” Emily lowered her voice, because people were starting to stare at her and Clancy again. “I certainly don’t have to marry for money. And I’m so spoiled, I don’t see how any man could put up with—”
“I’m willin’ to overlook a few faults—willin’ to spoil you more, darlin’. I’ve watched you grow into a fine young lady, and now that I’m not just a common cow-poke, I intend to prove how happy I can make you.” Clancy reached across the table to clasp her hands. “It’s what your daddy wanted, Emily. Better think about it.”
She jerked away from the huge paws that were holding her. “I think we’d better go,” she said tersely. She looked away from him—right into the distant yet distinctly curious eyes of Matt McClanahan, which only flustered her more.
Clancy’s gaze followed hers across the room, and he stiffened. “So that’s it,” he said in a low snarl. “Runnin’ out with McClanahan’s clothes was just an act, wasn’t it? You were back there with him the whole time, lettin’ him—”
“I’m leaving, Clancy. Are you escorting me?” Emily stood up, aware that the dining room had gotten suddenly quiet. The barkeep’s only response was an icy stare, so she walked quickly between the tables toward the front door.
Then Donahue was behind her, his boots thumping loudly on the hardwood floor as he took her elbow. “We’re not finished talkin’,” he snarled when they reached the sidewalk. “You can’t just walk away from me. I love you, Emily. I’m the one who thought up the name for the Golden Rose—after you. I bet your daddy never told you that.”
Emily scowled at what she sensed was a lie, yanking her elbow from his grasp. “Papa didn’t tell me a lot of things, Mr. Donahue. He didn’t have to.”
McClanahan paid for his dinner and strolled out to the sidewalk, grinning as he leaned against the front of Delmonico’s. Eliza was staying a step ahead of Donahue, answering each of his remarks with an impetuous toss of her golden braid. It did his heart good to see someone else being made a fool of by such a feisty imp.
“Well—McClanahan! Didn’t recognize you with your clothes on,” a familiar voice behind him teased.
He turned to see Barry Thompson, who now wore a city marshal’s star on his blue uniform. Thompson was sturdily built, tall enough that Matt had to look up slightly when he talked to him. “I should’ve passed the hat. Must’ve been the best entertainment in town last night.”
“I see Clancy’s not faring much better,” Thompson replied with a chuckle.
They looked down the street, to where the bartender was trying in vain to step in front of the woman who was barely half his size. “I’m only thinkin’ of your reputation,” he was saying loudly. “Would you have people call you a slut?”
“Is this how you’ll talk to your wife?” she retorted as she stalked across the street. “No thank you, Mr. Donahue. No man tells me what to do!”
“Amen to that,” McClanahan murmured.
The marshal laughed. “You here on business, old buddy?”
“Yep.”
“Don’t suppose you want to tell me about it.”
“Nope. Not yet anyway.” McClanahan watched Eliza and the bumbling bartender disappear between the smithy’s shop and the livery stable, then turned his attention to Thompson. “What do you know about Donahue, Barry?”
“Not much,” he answered with a shrug. “Keeps the Golden Rose in respectable order. They say you don’t want to cross him—especially when he’s drunk—but there’s a lot of men that way.”
Matt nodded and glanced down the dusty street again. “Does Burnham’s daughter ever come to check up on him? I hear she moved him off the ranch to get him out of the foreman’s hair.”
“Silas Hughes tells me Elliott only brought her here once, and she hasn’t gone anywhere since he died,” Barry replied. “And when Victoria Chatterly needed a big fellow to keep the peace at her parlor house, Silas figured it’d solve both women’s problems if Donahue took the job. Seems to be working out, from what I can tell.”
“What about the little blonde—Hughes’s niece?”
Thompson’s ruddy face creased into a smile. “You watching her closer now, to be sure she doesn’t run off with your clothes again?”
“A man’d have to be blind not to watch her” Matt stared as a dusty-gold palomino came up the street at a full gallop. Eliza was riding him bareback, her petticoats billowing out above her shapely legs as she urged the horse toward the edge of town. “Makes you wonder how Silas has kept an eye on her since her father abandoned her awhile back.”
“Is that what she told you?” Thompson shrugged and adjusted his hat. “That could be, but I don’t recall seeing her till a few weeks ago. Then again, maybe she just lately dyed her hair that color, so she’d get noticed.”
McClanahan stepped off the sidewalk to follow the palomino’s progress toward tree-studded Mount Pisgah, about a mile to the west of them. He knew damn well Eliza’s hair was naturally golden-blond…just as he now suspected her story had a hole in it.
The marshal cleared his throat pointedly. “You tired of chasing shadows around the mountains, Matt? Ready to settle down?”
“Maybe. If the right woman comes along.” McClanahan studied the lawman’s weathered face, noting the same etchings he was seeing in the mirror lately—time lines he hadn’t had when he and Barry last got together. “Say, you know where I can get a hat cleaned up? Mine’s new enough that I don’t trust it to a laundry.”
“Funny you should ask,” Thompson replied with a knowing chuckle. “I’ve heard Silas Hughes’s new housekeeper—an old colored guy named Idaho something—is pretty handy with herbs and potions. That’s who I’d try.”
“Thanks, pal. I’m at the Imperial, but don’t look me up,” Matt teased. With a light punch to the marshal’s shoulder, he headed toward the hotel with a plan already forming in his mind.
“Good luck with that little blonde,” Barry called after him. “Looks like you’ll need it.”
* * *
Emily wrapped the reins around a low tree branch and stroked her horse’s firm, warm neck. “Good boy, Sundance. We needed that ride, didn’t we?” she crooned. She patted his muscled shoulder, and then wandered a few steps across the grassy hillside.
The view from Pisgah stretched forever in every direction. From up here, Cripple Creek and Victor looked like toy towns; the roar and smoke of the mines, and the noisy bustle of the business district didn’t exist. There was only the whisper of the wind through the aspens, and the panorama of autumn’s palette glistening in the afternoon sun: golden leaves, the subtle crimsons of sumac, and the deep green of Douglas firs that gave way to the misty purples of the Cascade Mountains. It was the closest thing to the open spaces of the Flaming B she’d found, and she came here whenever she needed time alone.
Yet the soothing scenery wasn’t working its magic today. Emily sat down in the lush grass, running her finger over the petals of a pale blue columbine. How long could she play two parts without getting caught? To Miss Chatterly and the men at the Golden Rose and the mine, she was Hughes’s abandoned niece; to Silas, Idaho, and Clancy she was herself, Elliott Burnham’s daughter. Her deception had seemed like the perfect scheme: as Eliza, she could watch for Papa’s killer without insulting the wealthy men who frequented his parlor house or making the miners at the Angel Claire resent her for suspecting there was a murderer among them. And her plan had worked—until Matt McClanahan showed up with those observant blue eyes.
He was more of a problem than she’d bargained for. Did he already know who she was? The way he’d watched her at Delmonico’s suggested amusement, as though he thought she deserved the same sort of embarrassment from Clancy that she’d dished out to him. If McClanahan were ugly, or cruel, or discussed around town as a suspected criminal, her plan to get him convicted would be much easier to follow. But the memory of his caress still made her shiver uncontrollably.
And now Clancy was complicating her life even more. The thought of kissing him repelled her—the ladies at the Golden Rose whispered about his insatiable appetites, yet she suspected they had little choice but to put up with him. Papa had never mentioned him as a possible match. Indeed, Papa had tried to avoid the subject of his little girl getting married, although they both assumed the day would come. But to Clancy? After a lifetime of watching her father pine for the one love of his life, she doubted Elliott Burnham would suggest a husband his daughter couldn’t tolerate. Because Papa knew better.
And now poor Silas had learned about crossing her, too. She understood Hughes’s dilemma: he wanted his partner’s killer caught, yet he insisted on running the mine with his usual efficiency, as he had when E. R. Burnham was still alive. And Idaho meant well, but he’d been a hired man all his life. He was old and grieving and tired; not much help when it came to trapping the man who’d snatched away his reason for living.
Emily stood up, knowing the challenge of bringing Matt McClanahan to justice—without revealing her true identity—was hers alone.
“I’m not sure how I’m going to handle this, Papa,” she murmured to the vast blue sky. “But somehow I will.”
Chapter Four
The relative hush of early Monday afternoon greeted Matt as he stepped through the double doors of the Golden Rose with Silas Hughes. A few ladies lounged in the parlor, talking with each other or with the young pianist they referred to as Josh, but everyone else was upstairs. Once again McClanahan was struck by how this could easily be the home of Cripple Creek’s most upstanding citizen—except for its brightly-plumed residents, who twittered and waved when they recognized him.
“Let’s sit in the bar, back in the corner,” Silas said as he gestured toward the small walnut tables. “Whiskey all right?”
“Fine. Thank you.” Matt eased into a chair, his back toward the wall. He caught Clancy Donahue’s suspicious glance, but the bartender was the least of his concerns. The mine manager had taken him aside this morning, whispered the request, and then walked on as though his newest employee were just another mucker shoveling shattered rock into ore cars. Hughes didn’t impress him as the sporting-house type—and he certainly wasn’t a boss who’d socialize with his crew. So why were they here?
Matt smiled blandly at Princess Cherry Blossom, who was descending the stairs in a feathered headdress and a fringed gown that left one shoulder bare. Was Eliza here? Was this a set-up, where the innocent housekeeper and her indignant uncle would confront him about his part in Saturday night’s scandal? He doubted it. Silas was coming from the bar with a bottle, looking as supremely controlled as he always did. But McClanahan sat up straighten A man in his profession stayed alive by keeping track of where all the players stood at any given time.
The bottle thunked solidly onto the table as Hughes sat down. “Cigar, Mr. McClanahan?”
“Thanks, I believe I will.” He noted the label and smiled to himself. If Hughes was moving in for the kill, Cuban smokes and Irish whiskey were lavish last rites.
The mine manager poured their drinks, and moistened his cigar in his mouth before lighting it. He puffed pensively. “You’d think all the smoke and grit I eat at the Angel Claire would kill my taste for these. Must be the psychology of the thing.”
Matt smiled, waiting.
“What sort of work have you done before, McClanahan?” the pepper-haired superintendent asked.
He lingered over lighting his smoke, considering his answer. “Managed a ranch and a smithy for several years. Most recently, I’ve worked for Wells Fargo.”
Hughes nodded. “What brings you to Cripple Creek?”
McClanahan chuckled. “When the gold mines are turning men into millionaires every day, it’d be a shame not to try my hand at it.”
“Ever killed a man?” Silas’s eyes were gray and direct behind the thin stream of smoke he was letting out.
“Nope. I’d rather not carry a gun, except these days you never know when somebody’ll decide he’s got more use for your property than you do.” The mine manager wasn’t smiling or frowning, and Matt found none of his questions particularly surprising. Then he caught Princess Cherry Blossom winking slyly at him—just what he didn’t need.
Silas shifted in his chair. “You seem like a stable, responsible sort,” he said in a low voice, “so you’ll understand my concern when I saw my niece’s name connected with yours in the Cripple Creek Times.”
“Yes, sir. And I take full responsibility—”
“The whole incident was overblown,” Princess Cherry Blossom interrupted. She swayed up beside the table, refilling their glasses as she coyly widened her eyes at Silas. “I asked Eliza to take some towels in for Mr. McClanahan’s bath, and the next thing I knew she was dashing out with his clothes. She was laughing—everyone knew it was a just a
joke. And McClanahan spent the rest of the evening with me. Didn’t you, lover man?”
“That’s pretty much how it happened, yes.” Matt gave her a grateful yet purposeful smile, and when she slithered toward the bar, he faced Hughes again. “Sir, if you’re worried about my—”
“I figured Eliza had a hand in it,” Silas said with a resigned chuckle. “Ornery as she is, it was only a matter of time before such a thing happened.”
“Yes, sir.” Matt smiled, recalling her tawny eyes and the eager, rosebud lips that had him so ready to teach her all she wanted to know. “It surprised me a little to find such an…unspoiled young lady working here.”
“Oh, she’s spoiled,” Hughes said with a sparkle in his gray eyes. “Not the type to do needlework or help around the house, so when she’s not with me at the Angel Claire, I have her work here, where Miss Victoria and Clancy can keep an eye on her.”
Matt glanced toward the beefy bartender. “I imagine he does a fine job of it.”
“As well as any man can. You’ve probably noticed that Eliza’s got her share of spunk. Comes from never knowing her mother, and not having a father who cared enough to raise her, I suppose.”
McClanahan flicked the ash off his cigar, thinking only a golden-haired gremlin like Eliza could make such an upstanding man as Silas Hughes ramble so indulgently…and even lie.
Then the superintendent scrutinized him over the top of his whiskey glass. “I’ll make my point, McClanahan.
I’ve been wanting to hire an ore house supervisor for quite some time, but frankly, no one I’ve considered capable has come around. Would you want the job?”
Matt almost dropped his glass: the opportunity he was looking for had just fallen into his lap. But had it come too soon? He’d only worked at the Angel Claire for two days. “I—I’m not sure I’m qualified to—”
“If you’ve managed a ranch and worked for Wells Fargo, you’ll do fine,” Hughes stated. “You have a natural ability to get along with the men, yet you display more intelligence than a common laborer.”
Colorado Captive Page 4
