Cimarron Rose

by Nicole Foster

  “It sounds perfect,” Penelope said, a trace of regret in her voice. “Perfect for you.”

  Sick or not, Katlyn decided it was time to be firm with her mother. “Mama, I will not live there without you.”

  Penelope straightened in her bed. “Oh, yes, you will.”

  Exasperated, Katlyn started to insist when a light tap sounded at the door and Mrs. Donaldson pushed into the room, her thin arms laden with a tray. “I was thinkin’ you ladies might like some tea and cookies.”

  Penelope flashed one of her brilliant smiles. “Do come in, Elspeth, and tell my daughter what a nice arrangement we’ve come to.”

  Katlyn bristled. What had her mother done now?

  “Why, your ma told me all about your troubles,” Mrs. Donaldson said. “And pleased I’ll be to have rent from a regular boarder. Besides, it’ll do me old soul good to have another woman ’round the house to talk with now and again. And you’ll be just a wee walk away, so you won’t have to be worryin’ about her.”

  Bestowing a beaming smile on Katlyn, Mrs. Donaldson bustled out of the room, leaving Katlyn to confront her mother.

  “Don’t say it. It’s settled.”

  “Mama, I need you with me. It’ll be so much easier, don’t you see?”

  “No, I do not. And I won’t hear any more about it. I’ve told you, I won’t have anyone pitying your poor, ailing companion, and you certainly won’t tell anyone I am your mother. You promised me, Katlyn. Remember that.”

  Penelope’s voice betrayed her exhaustion, fading to a near whisper. Katlyn decided it best not to argue further with her. “Whatever you want, Mama,” she said, patting Penelope’s hand to calm her, “for the time being.”

  “There won’t be a time when I agree to go to that hotel. Now—” Penelope stubbornly forced her weakened body up a little farther against her pillow and leveled a sharp glance at Katlyn. “We’ve got work to do, Katie, my dear.”

  Katlyn stood in the middle of the saloon and stared at the stage. Small but elegant with its dark gold velvet hangings, mahogany-cased piano, and polished pinewood floor, it was the most terrifying thing she had ever seen. On Monday, she would have to stand there, pretend to know everything about pleasing an audience with her voice and her smile, and pray that no one saw Katlyn McLain behind the borrowed glitter.

  Sitting at one of the round tables pushed close to the stage, Katlyn drew a long shaky breath and let it slowly go. She had made her decision, there was no going back.

  If she broke her promise, it could cost her mother her life. She had to earn enough to take Penelope to the hospital in Las Vegas as soon as she was well enough to travel. Her mother depended on her and Katlyn vowed to not let her down.

  She distracted herself wondering where Mr. Durham was and if he remembered his invitation to meet her here this evening. He didn’t seem the kind of man to forget—or forgive—anything. The thought jerked Katlyn to her feet and set her pacing the room.

  If he ever discovered her charade…

  She was on the verge of leaving Case Durham to drink alone when a sudden commotion of raised voices sounded just outside the saloon doors. Before she could react, the crack of a gunshot resounded off the walls, followed by a grunt of pain and a string of cursing.

  Instinct sent Katlyn bolting for the doors. She flung them open—just as a second shot whizzed over her head, hitting the wall behind her.

  “Get down!” Case shouted at her.

  Katlyn dropped to her knees, more in surprise than in response to his command.

  A few feet in front of her, Case confronted a hulk of a man waving a six-shooter in one hand and a whiskey bottle in the other. The man swung the Colt in Case’s direction. But before he could fire another shot, Case knocked his arm up and at the same time slammed a fist into the man’s jaw.

  Case’s motion was so quick and supple, Katlyn scarcely believed she’d seen it until the man crumpled and fell face-first to the floor.

  Case kicked the Colt across the foyer. Then he grabbed the man by the collar, hauling him up.

  “I told you, you’re not welcome here, Charlie. I’m tired of you shooting up the place after you’ve had a few too many.” Yanking the befuddled man to the front door, Case shoved him outside. “Next time, I call in the sheriff. Now get home before you hurt someone.”

  He jerked the doors closed behind the unfortunate Charlie and swung his glare to Katlyn.

  “Are you trying to get yourself killed or do you make a habit of running toward bullets?” He didn’t give her time to answer but strode over and took her hand, pulling her to her feet. “Are you hurt?”

  A strange breathlessness attacked Katlyn, though from anger at Case’s rough tone or his sudden nearness, she didn’t know. He had shed his jacket and, in his shirtsleeves, his smoothness ruffled by the scuffle with Charlie, he looked a different man.

  At first, he had unnerved her because she feared he would see through her pretense. Now, he disturbed her with this new image of a man as adept at protecting his property as he was at operating it. Her initial impression had been of a polished and intimidating businessman.

  Her impression of him now was something very different. He unsettled her on another level, somewhere deep and private. The aggressive anger in his eyes, his mussed hair, disheveled clothes, the power written in the taut muscles straining against his rolled-up sleeves revealed a strong, rugged and terribly masculine side she found herself completely unprepared to face.

  “Well?”

  “Well what?” she asked, baffled.

  “I asked you if you are all right.”

  “Oh. Of course. Yes, I’m fine,” she said, realizing he still held her hand and looked at her as if he worried the close encounter with the bullet might make her turn and run. Instead, she banished the flash of fear at the idea she might have been shot, pulled her hand and her eyes away, and stepped back. “Interesting customers, you have. Does this happen often?”

  Case shrugged. “Fourth one this week,” he said, taking a closer scowling look at the bullet hole. “There are so many holes in this place it’s a wonder it didn’t start leaking long ago.” He laughed shortly at Katlyn’s dubious expression. “This isn’t St. Louis, Miss McLain. Did you think it would be?”

  “I didn’t think I would be dodging bullets,” Katlyn snapped back. “Are these the kind of people you expect me to entertain?”

  “Charlie is relatively harmless. He dips a little too far into the bottle and decides to come here and fire a few shots at the woodwork. That’s all.”

  “He nearly took a shot at you.”

  “He would have missed. And to answer your question, the kind of people I want you to entertain won’t set foot in here because they’re afraid of the guests that have been here in the past. I need you to change that.”

  Katlyn looked away and Case frowned a little. For a woman who earned her way and her reputation catering to audiences, she seemed oddly inhibited when he made any reference to her singing. From her letters he’d expected a pretty, vivacious woman, decidedly vain, experienced at flattery and expecting her share of honeyed praise in return.

  Katlyn McLain seemed someone else entirely.

  “Sing for me,” he said abruptly.

  The color drained from her face, leaving two spots of rouge staining her pale cheeks. “Now?”

  “Why not?” Case shoved open the door of the saloon. “I’d like to hear what I’m paying for.” Holding out a hand, he invited her inside.

  Or ordered her, Katlyn thought, tempted to refuse him. But if she did, she would only give him another reason to suspect her.

  Slowly she walked in, acutely aware of Case behind her, watching. Katlyn sat at the piano. She flexed her fingers a little, trying to keep them from shaking, and blessed her mother’s insistence that she learn to play. At least this way she wouldn’t have to look at Case while she tried to convince him performing came as naturally to her as breathing.

  She chose the first song that came to
her, a sweet, sad Irish ballad she’d learned as a girl. At first the notes and words came tentatively. Then, gradually, without her being aware of it, the music flowed into her and out in her voice. For a few moments she closed her eyes and she was Katie again, sitting alone in her mother’s hotel room, singing romantic ballads to herself and dreaming of true love.

  Case stood at the bar, his hand arrested in the motion of reaching for glasses, and stared at her.

  She sang like an angel, the sweet clarity of her voice weaving magic into the air like pure gold threads in a tapestry. There was nothing contrived or practiced about her singing. Nothing he ever expected to hear from a woman who had earned a reputation from entertaining on riverboats.

  Instead, her song touched him, warm and true, and caught him in a moment of enchantment.

  When she finished, Katlyn sat with her hands on the piano keys for a moment before she came out of her dream and slowly turned to face Case.

  He looked almost stunned and her heart plunged. “I—I haven’t practiced,” she stammered. “I’m sure once I’m able to—”

  “Practice, yes, I know,” he said, his voice low and rough. “It doesn’t matter. I’m sure your reputation alone will make you a success.”

  Katlyn opened her mouth, closed it, and finally managed to find her voice. “I don’t want to be a disappointment.” To anyone, she added silently.

  “Why should you be?” Case shifted as if throwing off some troublesome feeling, the edge back in his voice and demeanor. Moving behind the bar, he poured out two glasses, offering one to Katlyn.

  “A toast,” he said, raising his glass to hers when she stepped up to the bar to take the drink. “To Penelope Rose, my new songbird.”

  Katlyn acknowledged the toast with a forced smile. She took a sip of the brandy and tried not to cough. She had always hated spirits.

  Case laughed at the slight grimace she couldn’t quite curb. “I have no idea why you’re here, and I can’t picture you on a riverboat stage. What a puzzle you are, Miss McLain.”

  “Do you think so?” Katlyn walked away from the bar. She went around the room, idly touching a table here, a curtain there. “You’re more the puzzle. You don’t seem the kind to invest so much here, in Cimarron of all places. Why not Denver or Las Vegas or even Santa Fe? And why a hotel where bullets in the walls are as common as nails?”

  Case walked around the bar and went through the ritual of cutting and lighting a cheroot and taking a long draw before answering her. He leaned back against the ornately carved oak bar, appraising her with that calculating glint in his eyes Katlyn found so disturbing. “Why not?”

  “Your daughter. It’s not exactly the place for a child.”

  “Touché, Miss McLain. Except my daughter is not your business. I’m here because of her and that’s more than you need to know.”

  “And I’m here because I choose to be and that’s more than you need to know,” Katlyn snapped, stung by the brusqueness in his voice. “Now that we have that settled, I’m going to bed. I have a lot of practicing to do before Monday.”

  She stalked toward the doors, intending to leave with the last word. But before she could push her way out into the foyer, a long, low moaning sounded through the room. It might have been the wind, though it had a peculiarly human quality to it.

  Katlyn’s determined stride faltered.

  “Is something wrong?” Case asked.

  Katlyn whirled on him. “No, only I should have expected this place to be drafty considering you admit the walls are used for target practice on a regular basis.”

  “Oh, that’s not the wind.” Case saw the flash of uncertainty cross her face. He knew he shouldn’t risk unnerving her any more tonight. But her bravado seemed forced, a part of the persona of the St. Louis Songbird, not the real Katlyn McLain.

  That made it irresistibly tempting to tease her into revealing more of the woman hiding behind all of the theatrical trappings. The warm, passionate woman he had heard when she sang.

  He gave her a wicked smile. “Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s harmless. It’s only one of my resident ghosts.”

  Chapter Three

  One hour. The clock on the writing desk ticking off the seconds sounded unnaturally loud in the quiet room. Every tick grated at Katlyn’s nerves until finally she snatched up the clock and jammed it under the bed pillows.

  She hardly needed another reminder of what she had to do tonight.

  Turning back to the full-length mirror, she fidgeted with the shoulder of her dress, wondering how her mother ever felt comfortable wearing so much flounced satin and lace. The emerald satin did compliment her coloring. But Penelope had painted her face and arranged her hair so elaborately, Katlyn felt like a stranger to herself.

  A stranger she didn’t particularly like.

  Very soon, though, that stranger would have to stand onstage and pretend to enjoy singing to an audience. Katlyn, countless times over the last two days, had come close to confessing all to Case Durham and offering to wash dishes, or scrub floors, anything but pretend to be the St. Louis Songbird.

  Then she would look at her mother, pale and fragile, and see the hope in Penelope’s eyes, or the satisfaction when Katlyn successfully copied one of Penelope’s mannerisms, or echoed her singing style.

  So she stayed. In this blasted hotel, where the guests shot holes in the walls, the staff teased her about the ghosts of dead gunfighters haunting the halls, and Case Durham watched her as if he had known all along she was a fraud.

  “Miss McLain?” the voice foremost in her mind called through the door.

  Katlyn jumped. The man must be a devil, reading her thoughts.

  “Miss McLain?” Case said again. “I’d like to speak with you a moment.”

  Wonderful, Katlyn thought, just what I need now. She could hardly refuse him, though.

  Tweaking the shoulder of her dress one final time, she breathed deep and flung open the door. “Yes, Mr. Durham?”

  Case, confronted with an image of emerald ruffles and a defiant blue glare, could only stare at her for a moment, struck by the picture she presented. Although the dress and the rouge and the piled-up curls fit the image he’d had of Penelope Rose, it all looked wrong on her.

  Except for the defiance. Somehow, he had the feeling he wasn’t the first man to see that fire flash in her eyes.

  “I see you’re ready,” he said finally.

  “Of course,” Katlyn said. Her nervousness receded in a tide of indignation. He had assumed his polite mask, but not before she saw his obvious disapproval. “Now that you’ve satisfied yourself I’m not still in my petticoats, is there anything else?”

  Case smiled a little at her flushed face and the mutinous cant of her chin. No meek little sparrow, his songbird. “I came to wish you luck.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t embarrass you. I can sing.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard you.” He had, many times over the past few days. She had spent numerous hours closeted in the saloon or her rooms, practicing song after song. Case appreciated her willingness to work, and he couldn’t fault the quality of her voice. But her lack of polish puzzled him.

  He didn’t like it. Something about Penelope Rose rang false, and it was more than just the wrong clothes and the overdone curls.

  “You can sing,” he added, almost to himself. “I’m still waiting to see you perform.”

  “Oh, please, don’t overwhelm me with your compliments,” a combination of nerves and annoyance caused Katlyn to snap. She resisted the urge to fidget with her dress or her hair once again. “If you’re done with your inspection, it’s nearly time for me to go downstairs and perform.”

  Case didn’t seem inclined to move. “Not quite yet. Are you satisfied with the piano player I hired?”

  To Case’s surprise, Katlyn burst out laughing, the unrestrained, joyous sound filling the room. Suddenly she seemed to come alive, not his singer in fancy flounces, but the woman behind the carefully painted facade.

/>   “Jack Dakota is no piano player,” Katlyn said finally, breathless with laughter. “He’s a gambler who happens to know how to play piano. If he hadn’t bet his last dollar on a queen-high flush, he’d be sitting at one of your tables trying to fleece your customers instead of behind your piano trying to entertain them. But yes, I like him. And considering your clientele right now, he’s perfect.”

  Her teasing words drew no answering smile from Case. “I’m expecting you to change the clientele.”

  “You make it sound so desperate, Mr. Durham,” Katlyn said, forcing a lightness she didn’t feel. “I’m not a miracle worker. All I can do is sing.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’ll do fine,” Case said slowly. He looked her up and down, slowly appraising. “If you’ll just be yourself.”

  They locked gazes. Katlyn felt the force of his aura of command in his steady, faintly sardonic focus on her. She wanted to shift away from it but held her ground, determined to not let him unnerve her any more than he already had.

  “You hired the St. Louis Songbird. And that’s who those people downstairs have come to see.”

  Something hard struck his expression and for a moment Katlyn had the wild notion he intended to expose her then and there. She didn’t consider how he knew, only that he did.

  Then the moment passed and Case stepped back with a wry smile, gesturing toward the stairs.

  “Well, then, my songbird,” he said. “Your audience awaits.”

  Katlyn swept past him, her flush of bravado carrying her down the long staircase and to the doors of the saloon.

  Then, as Case opened the doors for her, a tremor of fear spiraled through her heart, settling as a lump in her stomach. She refused, though, to let Case know how terrified she really was, so she put her chin up and walked into the room as if she had done it a thousand times before.

  Case touched a hand to her waist to escort her to the stage and felt her tremble. It surprised him, even as he admired her proud walk through the room, looking as if she expected nothing less than adoration from her audience.

  As she stepped up onto the stage, Jack Dakota turned on his piano stool and grinned at her, then blew her a kiss. Katlyn’s smile flashed out and Case felt a stab of irritation. He forced it back to introduce her, but it scratched at him as she barely seemed to acknowledge his announcement or the audience awaiting her.