Denver

by Sara Orwig

  “Why do you care?”

  “Because I promised him I would give the money to you. I keep promises.”

  “This one you shouldn’t have made without knowing what you were saying,” she said with an unyielding note of determination that stirred his anger, until he remembered the fire.

  “You’ve had a bad day, Irish. I’m not going to argue with you tonight.” Impulsively he leaned forward. “Do you ever have fun?”

  She looked startled, gazing up at him with wide eyes, and he noticed how thickly lashed and beautiful they were.

  “Of course.”

  “Doing what?” he persisted, suspecting she wouldn’t know fun if it exploded in her life like Paddy’s blasting powder.

  She shrugged, looking at the flames dancing in the hearth. “I used to take the boys out when they were little. We have a favorite place along Cherry Creek north of town, and we’d have a picnic.”

  “Do you dance?”

  “No,” she said quickly, shaking her head. He remembered her limp and was sorry he had asked, but then he remembered seeing her running, so he decided the limp might not be the reason. “I like to read.”

  “So does my mother,” he said.

  “Where does your mother live?” she asked.

  “In San Antonio.”

  “Do you have other relatives?”

  He answered her questions with the story he had decided to tell others, trying to stay close enough to the truth to be able to remember easily what he had told people, yet far enough from it that no one would suspect his identity or background. While she plied him with questions and listened to his answers, she refilled his cup with coffee twice. It was over half an hour later that Dan realized he was doing most of the talking.

  “You’ve let me talk like I haven’t seen another person for the whole winter. You’re a good listener, Irish.”

  “You’re an interesting man, Mr. Castle,” she said forthrightly, and he wondered if she had ever flirted with a man in her life. But Silas’ deep attraction to her still puzzled Dan. “Thank you for taking time from your work to help me today,” she said. “And for getting Pa out of the house in time, although he has a knack for coming through trouble.”

  He stood up and she walked him to the door, handing his coat to him. His hand brushed hers, feeling her cold fingers. He caught her hand in his. “You’re cold.”

  “I’m fine,” she said softly, trying to withdraw her hand.

  He held her tighter. “Your hand is cold.”

  “I’ll get warm in the kitchen,” she said, withdrawing her hand this time.

  “Good night, Irish. We’ll have your boardinghouse back in order in no time.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Castle.”

  He left, striding away, thinking he was getting farther behind schedule on the house he had contracted to build for Lester Potter.

  For the next few days he worked in the mornings on the Potter house, then in the afternoons at the O’Malley boardinghouse. They framed in the damaged walls and floors, then laid the floors and put in the roof. As days passed, the volunteers quit and went back to their regular jobs, until Dan and Brian were the only ones working. Then Dan came only in the evenings, cutting into the time when he could call on Louisa. Each evening Dan ate dinner in the O’Malley dining room, staying later to talk to Mary O’Malley, and sometimes Brian as well. She was a quiet, intelligent, capable woman who always seemed to amaze him. She could take charge better than Dulcie, and got things accomplished quietly. One evening when he was telling her about the books he had read and liked, he paused to ask, “What’s your favorite?”

  “Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations.”

  “Why?”

  “Miss Havisham is eerie, and I can’t help but want Kip to succeed.”

  “I haven’t read it. My ma was going to get it on a trip”—he paused and went on smoothly—“on a trip, but she never got around to it.” He realized he had come close to saying on a trip into town, contradicting his careful story that his mother lived in San Antonio and that was where he had grown up.

  “I have it. Would you like to read it?” Mary asked him. Moments like this, when he sat and talked to her, she enjoyed his company, beginning to look forward to this time each evening. And she was happy to find someone to talk to about her books.

  “Yes, I would.”

  “I’ll get it now. Come with me.” He followed her down the hall into a back parlor that was filled with furniture as threadbare as that in the front parlor. It was a cozy, inviting room, though, with plants growing on the windowsills and blue curtains at the windows. Bookshelves lined two walls, and she paused in front of one, studying the titles.

  “Here’s one of my mother’s favorites,” he said, withdrawing a book by Sir Walter Scott.

  “I like that too. I love to read and forget the boardinghouse and Pa’s inventions.”

  “Maybe you should see to it your father doesn’t keep blasting powder.”

  “I can’t rule Pa. It’s getting to the point where I can’t even control Brian any longer.”

  “That’s part of life,” Dan said quietly, leaning against the bookshelf and studying her. Her hair was the color of fire and he wondered how it would look down across her shoulders.

  “Do you ever laugh, Mary Katherine?”

  She gazed up solemnly, and a twinkle came into her wide green eyes. “Occasionally, on my birthday.”

  They both laughed, and again he marveled at how it changed her face. She had dimples in both cheeks and white, even teeth. “That’s better. You’ve had a bad time with the fire.”

  “No one was hurt. The boardinghouse will get repaired, thanks to you. I’m sorry I threw a skillet at you that first day.”

  He laughed and tucked a wispy tendril of hair behind her ear. “If you knew how Silas sings your praises. Right this minute he probably has someone pinned down listening to him talk about Mary Katherine O’Malley.”

  She looked down at the book in her hands. “I wish he’d come home to me instead of telling people about me,” Mary said quietly, the old hurt surfacing.

  “I understand. I wouldn’t want to wait for someone to find a strike,” he said gently. “But he loves you very much.”

  She gave him a fleeting smile and placed the book back on the shelf. “If you want to read any of my books, you may.”

  He turned to look at them. “Where’d you get all the books?”

  Dan glanced at a bracket on the wall holding a lamp. It was canted at an angle and he reached up to touch it lightly.

  “That’s broken.”

  While Mary watched, he pulled a straight-backed wooden chair beneath it and climbed up to look at the fixture. As he stepped up, her gaze ran down his flat middle, his slim hips, and long legs. She blinked and looked away quickly, unable to resist glancing back. He reached into his hip pocket to remove a screwdriver. “I can fix this. I need a longer screw.”

  “I don’t have any.”

  “I do, in my box of tools.”

  “I’ll go get it,” she said before he could climb down. “Where is it? In the front parlor?”

  “Yes.” He removed the broken fixture, studying where it had pulled loose from the wall. In minutes she handed him the box and he hunted until he found what he wanted. “Hold that for me,” he said, dropping two long screws and a metal plate in her hand.

  Mary stood close, watching him work. A lock of golden hair fell over his forehead. His sleeves were rolled back, revealing muscular forearms. Her gaze ran swiftly down his length again, looking at his dusty black boots. “You like to build, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” he answered in an offhand manner, concentrating on his work. “You can see what you’ve accomplished when you’re finished. I like sheep ranching too, but you can’t see what you’ve done. You do the same thing over, season after season.”

  “I thought you grew up in a city.”

  Dan paused, glancing down at her, realizing there was something so disarming abou
t Mary Katherine O’Malley that he dropped his guard completely when he was around her. “I worked on a sheep ranch once.”

  “I’ve seen the house you’re building. It’s going to be beautiful.”

  He heard a wistful note in her voice and paused again. “You could fix things up here very nicely if you’d use the money Silas gave you.”

  “Mr. Castle, I won’t use one cent of Silas’ money. When I think about that money, I just get angry,” she said.

  “Irish,” he said as he went back to work, “you’re as stubborn as a Missouri mule.”

  She laughed, a merry sound that startled him and made him look down at her. He grinned in return, thinking Silas had good taste. Mary Katherine O’Malley was quite a woman when it got right down to it. Not so pretty, but very nice, very capable, and very intelligent. He studied her as she gazed up at him, and reassessed his appraisal. She was pretty, just not beautiful.

  “Maybe I should call you names more often,” he said, teasing her while he leaned forward to put a screw in place. “Stubborn, balky…”

  Mary was accustomed to horseplay with her brothers. She smiled and reached out to give the chair a gentle shake. “Beware, Mr. Castle! I can tumble you right to the floor.”

  “Hey! Damn, I dropped the screw.” He looked down and laughed. “Irish, you shake my chair again,” he said as she dutifully handed back the fallen screw, “and I’ll come down and get you.”

  She placed her hand on her heart. “Mercy me, Mr. Castle! I’m terrified!” she said, making him laugh.

  He grinned and went back to work, finishing the job and dropping down off the chair. “Got anything else that needs fixing?”

  “You’d be here until next year.”

  “What’s broken?”

  “So many things, but nothing that won’t be manageable.”

  “I don’t have another thing to do tonight. What’s broken?”

  The second window won’t raise.”

  Dan fixed the window, a broken cabinet door in the kitchen, and a loose tread on the stairs, while Mary followed him around and stood quietly talking to him. She liked watching him work and he was fun to talk to, more interesting than anyone she knew. There were moments when she was relaxed with him, and then suddenly she would become intensely disturbed by him. Throughout the evening, she was unable to understand the mixed reactions he stirred in her.

  As he replaced a broken baluster on the stairs, Mary sat two steps below and watched him work.

  “Michael used to fix things around here, but he’s got gold fever and has gone into the mountains now. Sometimes I think Silas talked him into it. I hear you’re building your own house.”

  “That’s right. I’ll show it to you sometime if you’d like to see it.”

  “Yes, I would. When we came to Denver, it was actually two towns called Auraria and Denver. They consisted of only a few tents and buildings, mostly saloons. We were here during the fire and when Cherry Creek flooded the town. Pa built a boat, but by the time he had it ready—actually it was a raft with a sail—the waters had gone down. The boys had fun playing on it until they hauled it down to the river and set sail. It crashed into the bank and broke up.”

  Dan laughed. “How’d your brother get to be such a scrappy fighter?”

  “When we were kids, we had to fight. Pa’s different from most men. He builds strange contraptions and odd inventions, he drinks too much, and he does all that whittling. Other kids used to tease us a lot, and all of us fought. I suppose we didn’t have a mama to tell us we shouldn’t. And on a frontier town in the early days—well, it isn’t easy being a woman, even if you’re young and lame and not very pretty.”

  She said it as matter-of-factly as if she was talking about the weather. Dan turned around to glance down over his shoulder at her.

  “Michael is the real fighter. He can whip Brian with one hand, and I haven’t—”

  Dan scooted down the steps and tilted up her chin. “Don’t ever say that again about being lame and not pretty,” he said quietly.

  Startled, she stared at him, her reaction switching to a volatile awareness. He looked angry, and she couldn’t imagine why he would care. “It’s true.”

  “You limp a little, but it’s barely noticeable.” He remembered Silas asking him to take her out, and his promise that he would. “There’s a barn dance at Simpson’s new livery stable Friday night. Go with me. Silas wanted me to take you out. Just a brotherly thing. Brian can go with us.”

  “Thank you, but I can’t dance.”

  “You can learn. Come here.” He took her hand and led her down the steps to the hall, shoving the braided rug out of the way with his toe. “Sing something. I heard you singing in the kitchen, so I know you can.”

  “Mr. Castle, this is absurd,” she said, embarrassed.

  “Sing, Mary,” he said.

  “I can’t dance. I’ll step on your feet,” she said, remembering Dewar Logan. “I don’t—”

  “If you don’t sing, I’d have to and you’ll wish you had.”

  She laughed and sang, and he took her hands, holding her at arm’s length. “Watch my feet. You’re singing a waltz, that’s good. Now, left foot, step. Step, step. One, two, three, one two three, I’ll count and you sing slowly and we’ll master this in no time.”

  Mary followed his lead. She had danced with Silas and she knew how, and in minutes she didn’t have to watch Dan’s feet. She looked up to find him watching her as she sang softly. His eyes were blue, thickly lashed, and he was watching her with a faint smile on his handsome face. For a moment she tilted her head back and enjoyed dancing, thinking how nice it was to have him insist they dance, how easy he was to talk to. She suspected the woman he loved wouldn’t have to wait years for him. Her gaze drifted down to his mouth, which was wide, the underlip full. He had a sensual, masculine mouth that made her heartbeat skip. Her cheeks grew warm and she blinked, looking away, trying to change her thoughts.

  “Hey, you can dance,” he said softly, watching her cheeks become pink.

  “I haven’t for years.”

  He laughed. “Years? You can’t even be eighteen!”

  “I am! I’m twenty this year. For mercy’s sake, how young did you think I was?”

  “Seventeen,” he lied, adding two years, because he suspected the truth would make her more annoyed. He was amused at her bristling over being thought young. She had forgotten her dancing, forgotten to sing, yet she continued to follow his lead, and Dan continued to waltz, watching her, thinking she was as quick-changing as mercury.

  “You dance as well as the best of them. Sing some more,” he said in a deep voice, watching her solemnly.

  She began to sing again, and Dan slipped his arm around her waist, really dancing now, and watching her intently. He realized she was as light as a feather, and graceful, following his lead as if she had no limp.

  Mary gazed up into his eyes, feeling caught in a spell while she danced, wanting to go on dancing. Since Dan had come into her life there were moments when some of her responsibilities seemed to fall away, and she realized he was beginning to be a true friend.

  “What are you thinking, Mary?”

  “It’s nice having you here.”

  He smiled with a flash of white teeth. “You don’t need lessons. I’ll come for you around eight o’clock.”

  “You don’t have to take me to a dance.”

  “No, but I’ll do this for Silas. You should get out and see people.”

  “I see people every day.”

  “You need to have fun,” he said, determined to see that she did, even if it was only one evening.

  The front door opened and a tall thin man entered. “ ‘Evening, Miss O’Malley.”

  “Good evening, Mr. Lewellan. This is Mr. Castle. Mr. Castle, meet the boarder who has been with us the longest, Mr. Lewellan.”

  “Yes, sir. I came to stay one night, and that was five years ago. I’ve been through a lot here, but this is the first time your pa has blow
n off half the house. I’m right happy I wasn’t in bed at the time.”

  “So am I, Mr. Lewellan.”

  “He was trying to make a mine blaster. He told me about it. Fill a container just like a giant bullet with blasting powder, same principle, trigger it off and let it shoot right through the earth. Save men lots of digging. Good idea if it had worked. My first wife, Mrs. Ella Lewellan, always had big ideas she couldn’t get to work, God rest her soul. At least she didn’t try to put them into practice. Nice talking to you young folks. If your pa comes in anytime soon, tell him to come up for a game of checkers.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said as Mr. Lewellan climbed the stairs.

  “Your pa likes to play checkers?”

  “Yes, that’s his favorite pastime, next to whittling.”

  “What’s he whittle?”

  “You haven’t been to Pa’s room? I’ll show you.” She led him down the hall, lighting a lamp in a back bedroom. “See? Pa likes to whittle.”

  Dan stood in the center of a bedroom filled with bottles and dozens of wooden figures.

  “He carved all these figures?” he asked, picking up one and recognizing tiger maple in the wood, a fine, artistic wooden horse with a flowing mane. “Mary, he’s good!”

  “I suppose. He’s productive—that I know.”

  Dan touched a wheel that had a wire that ran across the room to more wheels and levers beside the bed. “What’s this?”

  “I don’t know what all the inventions are. Pa has one that brings him his shoes when he pulls on a string. That little box with wooden rollers—he runs his feet over it and says it relaxes the muscles. His has all sorts of inventions.”

  Dan spent a quarter of an hour prowling around Paddy’s room, engrossed in the oddities. Finally he turned to Mary. “Guess I’ll get my coat and head home.”

  “It’s a cold night. I’ll fix you a cup of hot cider before you go.”

  “You won’t get any argument about that,” he said, and followed her to the kitchen. He walked around looking at the large iron stove. He ran his hand along the edge of the stove as she poured cider into a pan to heat it. “You’ve put your earnings into the kitchen.”