by Nerys Leigh
He felt a measure of satisfaction at Silversmith’s look of surprise at her usage of his first name.
“That’s all right,” Silversmith said, taking hold of the trunk’s handles, “I can put it wherever you’d like it.”
Zach stepped around her and placed a hand on the trunk. “That won’t be necessary. I’ve got it.”
A tense standoff ensued. Zach was well aware how ridiculous it was, but it was suddenly very important that he be the one to help her with the trunk.
Silversmith leaned forward, bringing his tobacco-laced breath uncomfortably close. “She’s my wife.”
Zach gritted his teeth. “Not for much longer.”
“I could take it in myself, if that would help,” Jo said brightly from behind them.
Zach glanced back at her. She looked amused.
Forcing himself to relax, he stepped back. “That’s okay, Mr. Silversmith can take it in. I’ll wait out here. With you.” He moved to her side and smiled triumphantly at the other man.
Silversmith’s frowning gaze flicked between the two of them. Then he shrugged. “On second thoughts, you should take it, so Jo and I can get going. We’ve got a long, long journey ahead of the two of us.”
A smirk slid onto his face. Zach had the strongest urge to slap it off.
Praying for restraint, he stepped forward and reached for the trunk. “If you harm her,” he growled, “if you touch her in any way whatsoever, I will make you regret it until your dying day.”
Grasping the trunk, he hauled it from the buckboard and carried it up the steps to place in front of the door. When he turned back he was surprised to find Jo standing right behind him.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” she said quietly. “I’ll be just fine. I’ll be back this afternoon, a free woman.”
Free to marry anyone she chose, although he might have been getting a bit ahead of himself there.
“I’ll have worked out everything with Mr. Vernon by the time you get back. Everything’s going to be okay, I’ll make sure of it.” He would, whatever he had to do.
She pulled on her straw hat and smiled up at him. “I know you will. I trust you.”
Her reply sucked all the breath from his lungs and it took him a few moments to recover enough to follow her back down the steps.
He helped her up into the buckboard, threw a final glare at Silversmith behind her back, and waved to her as they drove away.
“Please watch over her and keep her safe, Father,” he whispered as he watched them leave. “And please guide me in whatever I do, because I really, really like her.”
~ ~ ~
After taking Jo’s trunk to her room, Zach headed to the bank, where he was likely to find Mr. Vernon. If he was to have any chance at all with her, he first had to make sure he got to see her every day.
There were two men on ladders outside the building when he got there, sealing new window glass in place. He couldn’t work out if that was good or bad.
It had been a week since the attempted robbery when both windows were shattered by bullets and they’d been covered with wooden boards since, while the new windows were made and transported from Sacramento. So Mr. Vernon could be happy his bank was finally returning to normal. But it could also be a reminder that he’d had to have the repairs done in the first place. Although he would surely have been insured. But having never owned anything worth insuring, Zach wasn’t sure how long these things took to happen. Mr. Vernon could be fuming right now at the amount of time he’d be out of pocket.
“Please, Father, make it the former,” Zach murmured.
He circled around the base of the glazier’s ladder and walked inside.
“Hey, Zach,” Adam said from his place behind the barred counter. “Not payday, is it?”
Zach only ever came into the bank on payday, and sometimes not even then, if he didn’t have anything over to add to his savings. “No, sadly it is not payday. Is Mr. Vernon in?”
“Yeah, he’s in today. You want to see him?”
“If he’s free.” He glanced back at the door. “Is he in a good mood?”
“I have no idea. Why, what’ve you done?”
Zach made a valiant attempt to look affronted. “Why do you assume I’ve done something?”
“Because we’ve known each other our whole lives.”
It was a fair point. “Okay. But this time, I’m innocent. I just need to ask him something.”
Zach could see his friend was curious about why he wanted to speak to their mutual boss, something he never, under normal circumstances, did. But Adam didn’t ask and Zach was grateful for it.
For Jo’s sake, he didn’t want to make a big thing of their new friendship. She was only just getting her marriage annulled, after all. There were some people in Green Hill Creek who would regard it as highly suspicious, not to mention delightfully gossip-worthy, if she was then seen to be getting overly friendly with another man.
Not that they were getting overly friendly.
Although he wouldn’t object at all if they did.
“Come on in.” Adam unlocked the gate that separated the tellers from the rest of the lobby and waved him through. “He’s in his office. Good luck with whatever it is you haven’t done.”
“I haven’t done anything,” Zach said, heading for the door that led into the back.
“Of course you haven’t.”
“I haven’t!”
Jesse looked up from the ledger on his desk when Zach walked into the room behind the lobby. “Hey, Zach. What’s up?”
“He’s going to speak to Mr. Vernon,” Adam said from the doorway, “but he hasn’t done anything.”
Zach waved him away without looking back.
Jesse grinned. “What hasn’t he done?”
“You know,” Zach said as he reached the door in the far wall, “I had thought marriage would give you two a more mature approach to life. I can see now I was wrong.”
He left the room to the sound of laughter, smiling as he walked along the corridor to Mr. Vernon’s office.
It was still strange to not have to go through Mr. Ransom to get in to see Mr. Vernon. Strange, but good. He’d never liked Mr. Vernon’s secretary, with good reason, as it had turned out. He knocked on the office door and his boss’ deep voice told him to enter.
Mr. Vernon’s office wasn’t large, but it still managed to exude wealth. A huge mahogany desk dominated the space, behind which sat Mr. Vernon himself. Another chair sat on the side of the desk closest to the door. It had slightly shorter legs than Mr. Vernon’s chair, Zach had noted on previous visits, putting anyone sitting in it marginally lower than him.
While his desk dominated the physical space, Mr. Vernon dominated the room, not because he was particularly big, but because he carried a substantial air of authority. He wielded a significant amount of power in Green Hill Creek and there wasn’t a person in the town who didn’t know it.
Zach wasn’t given to being intimidated, however, by wealth or anything else. He was a child of God. With the Almighty as his heavenly Father, what could any man do to him?
But Mr. Vernon was his boss, so he wasn’t going to do anything stupid either.
“Mr. Parsons,” Mr. Vernon said, regarding him in surprise, “is everything all right at my hotel?”
“Yes, sir, everything’s fine.”
He sat back. “Then what can I do for you?”
Zach looked at the empty chair he hadn’t been invited to sit in. “Well, sir, I believe I can do something for you.”
One marginally raised eyebrow was the only response, so he carried on.
“As you know, Mrs. Sanchez has been asking for some time for more help in her duties. Numbers in the restaurant are picking up and I’m sure the rooms will be more in demand soon.” He wasn’t at all sure of that, but it sounded good. “In light of all that, I believe I have a solution that would get her the help she needs but not cost you any more money.”
Mr. Vernon folded his hands
in front of him. “Go on.”
Zach took encouragement from the fact that he hadn’t yet been ordered to leave. “There is a lady who is in need of a place to stay for a while. She’s respectable and a hard worker, and she’d be of great service to the hotel. And I thought that she could help out Mrs. Sanchez in exchange for a room and meals in the hotel. It would cost you no more than a little extra food, and you’d be getting a trustworthy and valuable employee.” He smiled. “It would also get Mrs. Sanchez off your back.”
The corner of Mr. Vernon’s mouth twitched ever so slightly. Mrs. Sanchez was also not one to be intimidated by authority.
“And who is this woman?”
“Her name is Miss Josephine Carter.”
Mr. Vernon leaned forward and placed his hands on the desk. “Ah, the soon to be erstwhile Mrs. Silversmith.”
He knew about Jo? Of course he knew about Jo. He had access to a source with more contacts than the most skilled newspaper reporter – Mrs. Vernon, the town’s biggest gossip.
“Yes, sir,” Zach said.
“How is she?”
He shifted his feet nervously. “Much better.”
“And how is she enjoying my hospitality?”
His shoulders slumped. If the Pinkerton Detective Agency had known about Mrs. Vernon, they would have begged her to work for them.
“She had nowhere else to go. I didn’t think you’d object if she stayed for a few days, after the trauma she went through.”
“I believe that few days is, in fact, four.”
Four qualified as a few, in Zach’s opinion. “Yes, sir.”
“And now she’d like to stay longer.”
“Until she has somewhere else, yes.”
Mr. Vernon pursed his lips, moving his gaze to a point somewhere over Zach’s right shoulder.
Zach rubbed at the back of his neck in the silence that followed. Truth was, he was certain Pastor and Mrs. Jones would give Jo a place to stay if she had to leave the hotel, but then he’d have no excuse to see her every day. He really wanted to keep seeing her every day.
“All right,” Mr. Vernon said, “I’m willing to give her room and board in exchange for working at the hotel. I would like to meet her first, however.”
Zach wanted to jump up and down for joy. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
“Have her come see me today. I’ll be here until five.”
“Yes, sir. She’ll be here. Thank you.” He backed towards the door. “You won’t regret this.”
“I should hope not.”
He left Mr. Vernon’s office and fairly skipped back along the corridor.
Jesse watched him bounce into the room. “What on earth happened back there?”
Zach clamped down on his smile. “Nothing.”
He dropped his pencil onto the ledger and narrowed his eyes. “What’s going on with you?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
Zach planted his hands on his hips. “I’m a fantastic liar!” Calling his lying skills into question was a step too far.
“Not right now, you’re not.”
Zach’s smile threatened to return. He turned away to hide it and headed for the door to the lobby. “Don’t you have work to do?”
Chapter 16
Jo breathed a sigh of relief when she and Gabriel finally got back to Green Hill Creek, after three in the afternoon. Her backside was numb. If she ever had to travel any distance in any kind of wagon again, she was at least bringing a cushion.
He brought the buckboard to a stop outside the hotel and sat quietly for a few seconds, not looking at her. “I liked having you around. I take some of the blame that things didn’t go right between us, and I just wanted to say that. I thought I liked being on my own, but having someone else around was... pleasant.”
He made it so difficult to be angry with him sometimes. It was infuriating.
Leaning over, she kissed his cheek, something she’d never done while they were married. “I truly hope you find the right woman for you, Gabriel. Someone who loves your cabin and Brutus and Fred and Jed and Goat and the chickens. And who’ll love you like you,” deserve didn’t seem like the right word, “will love her.”
He sighed and nodded and made no attempt to help her down from the buckboard. She gave Fred and Jed a pat, said goodbye to Gabriel, and watched him leave.
When he was gone, she looked up at the hotel. What was she going to do now? She had exactly three dollars and thirteen cents left of the money Clive had left her while running off with the rest. Even if she could somehow stay in the hotel for free, and she wasn’t sure how Zach would pull that off, she would still need money for food and clothing, especially once the baby came. She needed to get money now, and she needed to get it fast.
Turning her back on the hotel, she looked along the town’s main street. It was less than three weeks since Amy had tried to find a job in Green Hill Creek, and the only person hiring had been Zach’s father, George, at his livery. If Amy couldn’t get a job anywhere else then, how would Jo now?
She wandered slowly along the street, thinking. She needed a walk after the long journey to Auburn and back anyway, if only to get the feeling back into her rear.
There must be a way to get money. She was good at doing the seemingly impossible, like convincing a member of the English aristocracy that she was carrying his son’s child when they hadn’t done anything more than exchange the occasional kiss. Surely she could find a job in a small town.
It wasn’t long before the answer was staring her in the face. Amy had said she’d tried everywhere, but there was one place Jo knew for a fact that she hadn’t.
The Royal Flush saloon was a fairly large, two-storey building with a balcony extending towards the street from the second floor. Its paint was peeling and it had a slightly shabby look, but Jo had no doubt it was well patronised. These places usually were, especially if they were the only place around where a man could get alcohol and... other things.
She wasn’t sure how long she stood across the road, staring at it. She was well aware that establishments like this were no place for respectable women. Or any women, for that matter, other than those who serviced the clientele. If she did this, she would definitely lose any standing in the town she still had left. It shouldn’t have mattered to her, and she was somewhat surprised to find that it did, given the circles she had often moved in back in New York.
But she needed a job that would give her enough money to get her through the final stages of her pregnancy after it started to show, when she wouldn’t be able to get any job, not even this one. All her respectability would go out the window then anyway. There were few people less respectable than an unmarried mother. Not even a saloon girl. Probably not even a prostitute.
Her child was relying on her. She’d never had anyone rely on her before, let alone a helpless baby, and there were times when she was almost overwhelmed by the terrifying sense of responsibility. But there were also times when she welcomed it. It was nice to have to think of someone else for a change. It made her feel like she was needed. Someone needed her. And she wouldn’t let him or her down.
Straightening her shoulders, she held her head high and strode across the road and into the Royal Flush.
The interior of the saloon wasn’t bad, all things considered. The walls were polished wood panels, the tables and chairs were of decent quality, there was even a cut glass chandelier hanging from the ceiling in the centre of the room. The floor was even clean...ish.
The moment she walked in, the general murmur of conversation came to an abrupt halt and every eye in the room turned to her. She ignored the patrons’ attention and walked to the long oak bar spanning the wall to her left. “Bourbon, please.”
The bartender gaped at her. One of his front teeth was missing.
“Would you like me to speak louder?”
His jaw snapped shut. “No, I... I can’t serve you.” His eyes darted around the room as if searching
for something.
“Why ever not?”
“’Cause you’re a woman.” His eyes travelled slowly down her body. “If you’re here looking for a job, though, I can put in a good word for you.” His tongue darted over his lips as they stretched into a leer. “Although I’ll need proof you’re qualified.”
She had a sudden urge to gag, and it had nothing to do with her condition. “I’d rather wrestle a hundred scorpions,” she muttered.
“What?”
She raised her voice. “I said I’d rather wrestle a hundred scorpions.”
His leer became a deep frown. “Now you look here, missy...” He came to an abrupt halt, his gaze going beyond her.
“Something I can do for you, ma’am?”
She turned round at the voice.
The man standing behind her was perhaps in his late thirties, with jet black hair and ice blue eyes. He was exceptionally well-dressed in a tailored dark grey suit and mustard silk waistcoat. His polished black shoes gleamed despite the relatively low light in the saloon and a gold signet ring adorned with a ruby glinted on the middle finger of his right hand. To be flaunting so much wealth, he must have been the owner.
She put on her most elegant smile. “I’m sure there is. My name is Josephine Carter, and I have a proposition for you.”
One corner of his mouth hitched up. “Well, when a beautiful woman offers me a proposition, I always listen.”
Even though she hadn’t offered her hand, he extended his. For anyone else, she’d have simply stared at them until they realised their mistake. But she was here for a reason, so she allowed him her hand in return.
He bent to place a kiss on the back, looking up at her as he did so. “Rufus Prendergast, at your service. Won’t you join me for a drink?”
Without waiting for her answer, he nodded to the greasy bartender and placed his hand on the small of her back, guiding her to a booth towards the far back corner of the room. Her skin shuddered at the contact, but she kept her mouth shut.
“We don’t normally get women in here,” Rufus said when they’d sat, “other than my girls.”
