Rocky Mountain Marriage

by Debra Lee Brown

  “I dropped a tray of beer mugs in the doorway there.” Jim nodded toward the kitchen. “Glass everywhere.” He shook his head. “Damned shame.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “About your pa, I mean, not the glass.”

  “Oh, of course.” She stared past Jim at the dark stain on the well-worn pine flooring behind him, where William Fitzpatrick’s blood had soaked the unvarnished wood.

  Chance caught himself feeling sorry for her. He downed the rest of his coffee and adjusted his attitude. He had a job to do, and it was time to get some answers. “Your father, uh, write you any letters before he died?”

  She snapped to attention, her spine straightening, and cast him a suspicious look. “Why do you ask?”

  “No reason.” He shrugged convincingly.

  Not ten minutes ago he’d watched her read a two-page letter he’d mistaken last night for prayer sheets. His first erroneous impression of her and that red leather-bound book had cost him time. No matter, he thought as he noticed the diary and the letter sandwiched inside it poking out from the pocket of her dress. He’d get his hands on it soon enough.

  Jim leaned toward her in his bartender-like “you can trust me” slouch, which Chance had seen him use with great success in wheedling information out of the most secretive of customers. “Your pa didn’t, uh, mention that he’d left you anything special here, did he?”

  Chance went statue-still.

  “What do you mean? Left me what?”

  Jim looked at him, but Chance didn’t come to his rescue this time. He was busy viewing Jim Parker with new eyes.

  “Well, uh, anything. Important papers, family keepsakes…” Jim ran a sweaty palm over his balding pate. “…valuables, maybe?”

  “Valuables? You mean like jewelry or money?” Her frown deepened. She looked around the room again, this time with renewed interest.

  “Oh, uh…” Jim looked away. He grabbed a wet towel and began wiping down the bar. Chance had never seen him so agitated. “Was just a rumor I heard, is all.”

  Chance watched her closely to see if her gaze lingered too long on any one area of the saloon. It didn’t. “I suspect Miss Fitzpatrick doesn’t much believe in rumors.”

  “You’re right,” she said curtly, avoiding his eyes. “I don’t. I base all my decisions on facts.”

  She tried to mask her natural reaction to the painting over the bar when her gaze darted past it, but couldn’t. He smiled inwardly. Her prudish sensibilities were predictable, and that would make his job all the easier.

  Eventually she dropped her gaze to the letter sticking out of her diary. He could tell by the twitch of her hand against her pocket that she fought the urge to take it out and read it again in front of them.

  He had to know what was in that letter.

  She caught him staring at it, and abruptly turned away.

  “Well,” she said to Jim. “I’ll be going into town now, Mr. Parker. Is there a buggy or some other kind of conveyance I might borrow?”

  “The place is yours, Miss Fitzpatrick. Take whatever, uh…conveyance you like.” He nodded in the direction of the kitchen door. “One of the boys out back will set you up.”

  “I could take you in,” Chance said and risked a smile.

  She arched a disapproving brow at him as if he’d suggested they run buck-naked together down to the creek and jump in. Hmm. He gave her dowdily clothed figure another once-over and thought the notion wasn’t a half bad idea.

  Her nostrils flared. “That won’t be necessary.” She turned away. “Thank you again, Mr.—”

  “Jim,” the bartender said.

  “Jim, then.” She dropped a smile on him, and after a cautionary glance in Chance’s direction, she turned on her heel and marched out the way she’d come in.

  Chance set his empty cup down on the bar and figured he had just enough time to finish dressing, grab his hat and saddle up Silas before she was gone.

  “You’re not really thinking of selling the place, are you?” Jim called after her.

  Wild Bill’s daughter didn’t answer.

  For the second time in as many days Chance Wellesley followed her to town. Dora didn’t give him the satisfaction of looking back at him. Not once. Well, maybe once, but that had been a mistake. Her hat had flown off in a gust of wind, and she’d stopped to retrieve it a second before he caught up with her. He’d tipped his hat to her and smiled. She’d promptly ignored him.

  As it turned out, her father had owned a number of good horses, a sound buckboard, a surrey and two wagons used for hauling loads of supplies from town. Rowdy, one of two ranch hands whom he’d continued to employ long after he’d quit the cattle business, had, true to the bartender’s word, set her up. She’d opted for the buckboard.

  Guiding a pair of dappled mares, she pulled off the deeply rutted trail leading from the Royal Flush onto Last Call’s main street. It was a fine spring day, and the town looked far more welcoming in the sunshine than it had last night.

  Out of the corner of her eye she spied Chance making the turn into town behind her, Silas dutifully trotting along in her wake. Why wouldn’t the man leave her alone? She was determined not to encourage him. She’d seen the way he’d looked at her in the saloon, and the suspicious way he’d eyed her diary. She’d simply have to ignore him.

  Last Call was a fair size for a mining town. In addition to the establishments she’d already seen, the long boardwalk-lined main street boasted a mercantile, telegraph office, the livery where yesterday afternoon she’d hired transportation out to the ranch, a cattle exchange, grange building and a small, whitewashed church.

  No school, at least not here in the center of town. Perhaps it was tucked away on one of the side streets among the residential buildings and boardinghouses. Boardinghouses that were full up, she remembered with irritation. Then again, perhaps Last Call had no school. She noticed a number of children playing in the street, children who should be in school on a Friday morning.

  “The sign says Harrington, but his name’s Grimmer.”

  “Excuse me?” She hadn’t noticed that Chance had spurred Silas up alongside her.

  “Your father’s lawyer.” He flashed his eyes at the sign as she pulled the buckboard up in front of the law office she’d seen last night.

  “How would you know my father’s lawyer?” He seemed determined to insinuate himself into her business. The question in her mind was why?

  Had her father left her something more than the saloon and ranch, as both his letter and Jim the bartender had implied? He very well might have, and if Chance Wellesley knew about it, he was exactly the kind of unscrupulous character who would attempt to swindle her out of whatever it was. Perhaps it was money. Hmm…

  He dismounted and was at her side a moment later, his hand extended to help her down from the buckboard. He flashed her that trademark smile, and it dawned on her that he meant to seduce her out of it, if money was indeed his motive in dogging her every step.

  “Oh, Chance! Yoo-hoo,” a coquettish voice sounded from behind her.

  She turned to look at the passerby, a surprisingly well-dressed woman, and Chance used her momentary lapse in attention—and judgment—to grasp her around the waist. “Oh!”

  “Just helping you down, Miss Eudora.”

  “It’s Dora. I mean—” The man completely discombobulated her! “Take your hands off me! I’m perfectly capable of—”

  He ignored her protest and lifted her from the conveyance, setting her, light as you please, on the ground. “You’ve overstepped your bounds, Mr. Wellesley.”

  The well-dressed woman winked at her as she passed them. “He’s been known to do that a time or two, haven’t you, Chance?”

  He shrugged boyishly, angering her even more.

  Dora stormed past them both, climbed the two steps up to the boardwalk, and a few seconds later opened the door to the law office of H. J. Harrington, Esquire.

  “Mortimer Grimmer,” the friendly-looking man said to h
er, extending his hand. “How may I be of help?”

  “Told you his name was Grimmer.” To her annoyance, Chance had followed her into the office.

  “Wellesley! What brings you to town?”

  Chance grinned. “I’m here to collect the rest of my winnings from Saturday night’s game.”

  Dora was appalled. Not only did he know her father’s lawyer, it appeared they played cards together.

  “Oh, and I’d like you to meet someone. Miss Eudora Elizabeth Fitzpatrick.” She was surprised he remembered her middle name.

  “You’re Bill’s girl?” Mr. Grimmer grabbed her hand and shook it enthusiastically. “Well, I’ll be. You don’t much look like him.”

  She barely remembered what her father had looked like, so she didn’t know whether he was complimenting her or not. She knew she wasn’t much to look at, but the good-natured lawyer was smiling, so she suspected it was a compliment.

  “I take after my mother’s side.”

  “Well, well. Please, have a seat.” He gestured to a visitor’s chair in front of his very tidy desk. Business didn’t appear to be too brisk. “You, too, Chance.”

  “Oh, but…” She wasn’t about to talk about her father’s affairs with him in the room.

  Grimmer read her reaction. “Oh, I apologize. I thought you two were together.”

  “We are,” Chance said.

  “We most certainly are not.” She refused to sit down until he left Mr. Grimmer’s office. Once that was made clear, and after he had, she got down to business.

  “Now, about your father’s will…” Grimmer produced the will, and together they reviewed it. It confirmed what he’d written in his telegram to her last month, that out of her father’s original thirty thousand acres, only six thousand remained. He’d sold the rest to finance the construction of the house and set himself up in business.

  During their conversation she was aware of Chance standing outside on the boardwalk, leaning up against the side of the building, pretending not to watch them. She knew better. The nerve of the man!

  “Well, that’s that, then.” Grimmer handed her his bill. It was sizable. He appeared to be waiting for her to pay him. She suspected he needed the cash to pay off the gambling debt he owed Chance Wellesley.

  “There was nothing in particular described in my father’s will besides the property?”

  “That’s right,” Grimmer said. “And all the contents, of course, the livestock, the horses, et cetera. The transfer papers are all complete.” He produced them, and after reviewing them she signed them.

  “Yes, but I had thought he might have left me something more. Something…”

  The lawyer clasped his hands together on top of his desk and leaned forward in anticipation. His paternal smile faded. For a moment he reminded her chillingly of the greedy mole in a popular children’s book she read to her younger students.

  “Never mind,” she said, and shook off the odd feeling.

  His smile returned.

  She took a moment to collect her thoughts, then rose. “Thank you, Mr. Grimmer. You’ve been most helpful.” They shook hands, and when it became apparent to him that she wasn’t going to pay him his fee, she said, “As soon as I’m done at the bank, I’ll see to it you get your payment.”

  His smile broadened. “Have a fine day, Miss Fitzpatrick.”

  “Goodbye.”

  Chance was waiting for her outside, casually twirling the watch fob hanging from his belt, trying to appear indifferent. He didn’t fool her for a second.

  “You’re still here,” she said as she breezed past him, continuing down the boardwalk toward the bank. She paused to read a handbill warning the public about a rash of counterfeit currency in circulation right here in Park County.

  Chance beat her to the door of the bank and held it open for her as she entered. There were several customers in line waiting to speak with a clerk who was carefully inspecting each bill of a customer’s cash deposit.

  A tall, impeccably dressed gentleman who was likely the bank’s manager appeared from an office in the back to offer help. He was fair-haired and clean-shaven, rather dashing, Dora thought.

  “I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you.” Chance removed his hat and stepped into line behind her.

  She promptly turned her back on him. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Wellesley.”

  The portly woman in front of her reeked of lavender water and struggled to keep her noisy little dog under control. Any moment Dora was going to sneeze. She opened her reticule and fished around for her handkerchief, retrieving it just in time.

  “What I mean, Miss Fitzpatrick—”

  The banker looked up at the mention of her name. He had the most captivating blue eyes.

  “—is that Wild Bill didn’t think much of banks. So if you’re expecting to find—”

  She sneezed so violently she dropped her open reticule. Its contents spilled out across the floor.

  The banker rushed out from behind the counter, scooted the woman and her dog aside, then knelt to collect her things. Chance had the same idea at the same moment. The two men butted heads in their frenzy.

  “Oh, my key!” The small brass key that had accompanied her father’s letter lay at her feet.

  “Allow me.” The banker snatched it up a split second before Chance could get his hands on it. He secured everything else inside her reticule, then stood. It was clear from the first that Chance Wellesley didn’t like him, which was reason enough to commend him to her.

  “Your things, Miss Fitzpatrick.” He offered her the reticule and smiled. His expression darkened as he nodded at Chance. “Hello, Wellesley. Here for another loan?”

  Chance glared at him, then turned his attention to the key, which the banker had not yet returned to her.

  “John Gardner, at your service, miss.” He gave her a little bow, which she thought charming.

  Chance muttered something rude under his breath.

  Dora ignored him. “I’m glad to know you, Mr. Gardner.”

  “You’re William Fitzpatrick’s daughter?”

  “That’s correct.” It was so nice to hear her father called something other than Wild Bill.

  “Although the bank does hold the mortgage on his property—your property now, as I understand from Mr. Grimmer—I’m very sorry to tell you that your father didn’t keep an account here.”

  “Oh.” She knew her disappointment showed.

  “Told you so,” Chance said.

  She and Mr. Gardner moved closer, effectively shutting him out of their conversation.

  “I didn’t know there was a mortgage. Is it sizable?”

  “I’m afraid it is.”

  Her hopes sunk.

  “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but your father had a number of creditors, and was behind on his interest payments to the bank when he died.”

  “I see.” He’d mentioned none of this in his letters to her. Perhaps her mother had been right about his character after all.

  “However, this is the key to his safety deposit box.” He dropped the small brass key into her gloved hand.

  A safety deposit box! Of course! That explained the strange marking on the key. Each bank had a unique identifier.

  “Perhaps what’s inside will solve all your problems.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.” Chance looked over her shoulder at the key. He was so close, she felt his warm breath on her neck and detected the faint scent of his shaving soap. It was sandalwood and rather pleasant, unlike the man himself.

  “I suppose you’d like to open it right away.”

  “Yes, I would,” she said, turning her attention back to the matter at hand. “I’d also like to discuss the sale of my father’s property, if you have the time.”

  “I’ll make the time.” He dismissed Chance with a glower. “I’ll deal with you later, Wellesley.”

  Chance ignored him and followed them into the office in the back.

  She whirled on
him. “What is it now?” Her irritation was not lost on Mr. Gardner.

  “Would you like me to intervene?”

  “No. Thank you. I can handle Mr. Wellesley myself.” She marched back out to the front.

  Chance sauntered out behind her. “I like the sound of that, Dora.”

  “Of what?” She didn’t bother reminding him that she hadn’t given him permission to call her by her Christian name, and a nickname at that.

  “Of you handling me yourself.” He grinned.

  “Mr. Wellesley!”

  “I wish you’d call me Chance.”

  She’d rather burn in hell. “I have only one thing to say to you.”

  He hitched his hip against the hand-carved walnut partition separating the bank’s customer area from the back offices and waited for her to continue.

  “If you think you’re going to get your hands on my father’s money, you’re wrong.”

  “What money?” He arched a brow at her, as if a point had just been scored in his favor.

  In the morning light she could see the fine worry lines around his eyes and forehead, and a depth to his eyes she hadn’t noticed before. The impression contradicted the roguish demeanor he seemed determined to exhibit to perfection.

  She gathered her wits, ignoring the stunned expressions and hushed whispers of the bank’s customers and said, “None of your business.”

  “Fair enough.”

  His acquiescence stunned her. “Fine.” Before he could say anything else to annoy her, she brushed past him and returned to the banker’s office.

  “Everything all right, Miss Fitzpatrick?” It was plain he’d overheard their conversation.

  “Just fine.”

  “If you don’t mind my giving advice… Chance Wellesley is a gambler and a notorious ladies’ man to boot. You might want to think twice about being seen with him.”

  “Yes, well, I appreciate your advice, Mr. Gardner.” It seemed strange to her that the banker would warn her against him in one breath, then turn around and loan him money in the next. “I’d like to see my father’s safety deposit box now, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “No trouble at all.” He came around his desk, retrieved a key from his watch pocket that was secured to a heavy chain, then opened a door behind which was a set of stairs. “The vault is in the basement. After you.”