by Gem Sivad
“Well, thanks to Deacon, I’m getting plenty of practice being female.” Miri grimaced and then grinned at her Beauregard disguise reflected in the mirror.
She didn’t doubt that Deacon would use their current case to get more detective business. She didn’t mind letting him direct things. Though his methodical approach to planning ventures was different from her spur-of-the-moment decisions, when they compared ideas, their end conclusions were usually pretty much the same.
A quick search of their room confirmed that she’d left nothing behind. She wasn’t surprised when a knock sounded. She swung open the door, expecting the arrival of the hotel porter to fetch their trunk downstairs for shipping. Instead, she faced Lydia Lynch accompanied by Adam Crispin.
“Well howdy-do,” she drawled in her best Tennessee twang. “Sure wish I had a gun in hand instead of a tip for the hotel employee.”
Crispin didn’t have the same trouble. He held his derringer pointing at her heart.
“Beau, I want my brother,” Lydia said as soon as she stepped through the door, Crispin following.
“What’s his interest in Ned?” Miri asked, nodding at Lydia’s companion.
“I want my plates, you little cocksucker,” he snarled.
“Well, all righty then. Guess the only thing left to know, Miss Lynch, is if you took part in the counterfeiting business while you were running the Pleasure Dome.”
Miri addressed her question to the brothel owner but kept her gaze on Crispin’s gun.
Deacon eased his grip from the knob, leaning closer to the door to better hear the murmur of voices on the other side—definitely more than one. The porter coming down the hall pushing a luggage cart before him gave Deacon what he needed.
Wearing the old man’s hat and jacket, he knocked at the suite, then hunched over the cart, keeping his head low as the door swung open.
“Here to pick up the trunk,” he muttered, wheeling the cart before him.
Two steps into the room, he shoved it as if it were a battering ram, knocking Adam Crispin to the floor. Deacon jumped him, wrestling for the gun in the gambler’s hand.
“Oh no you don’t,” Miri said in Beau’s voice, blocking Lydia’s move toward the exit.
Deacon stood, pulling Crispin with him to his feet, and Miri cuffed Lydia’s arms behind her.
“Good work, partner,” she drawled. “Things were just gettin’ interestin’. Crispin here wants his plates.”
“Is that right? Guess this is our lucky day.”
“Deacon, thank God you’re here. I don’t know anything about plates. I’m here because I need your help.” The owner of the Pleasure Dome looked at him beseechingly.
“What do you want, Lydia?” Deacon asked. “More to the point, why are you with Crispin?”
“I came to beg you to help me free Ned.” She glared at Miri. “You caused this mess when you posed as my butler. Now you can help fix it.”
“What’s Crispin doin’ with ya?” Miri drawled in Beau’s voice.
“He offered to escort me here when I discovered Deacon was staying at the Ellis.” She looked at Beau with disgust. “What are you doing here?”
“Lydia, meet my wife’s cousin, Beau Beauregard,” Deacon said before Miri responded.
“Don’t be stupid, Deacon. I knew all of Annie’s relatives and this bumpkin is no relative of hers.”
“My present wife is in the salon below, waiting for me to join her,” Deacon corrected Lydia. “We’re here on our honeymoon. Now maybe you’d like to explain why you’re here with the head of the counterfeiting ring. On the other hand, Beau and I should thank you. We won’t have to track Crispin now.”
Lydia glared at Crispin, then turned to Deacon. “I need to get back to my house. I don’t know what Adam is involved—”
“Shut up, Lydia,” Crispin snarled before she could say anything that might incriminate him further or reveal where she stood in the counterfeiting business.
The fact that the madam closed her mouth at his order told its own tale about her involvement.
“Lydia, you can tell your story to the US marshal. Crispin, I’m sure the Fort Worth sheriff will be pleased as punch to have company.” He looked at Miri and smiled grimly. “Ready, Beau?”
Epilogue
Christmas 1884
“Who pledges to guide this child in the ways of the Great Spirit in the Sky?” Robert McCallister bent over Samuel Elliot McCallister Jr., smoothing the fluffy blond hair on the baby’s head.
“His mama and I do,” Sam said gruffly. The idea of Snake McCallister, reformed whoremonger and retired killer, making the commitment would have been ludicrous if the vow hadn’t been delivered with such conviction.
Deacon’s throat tightened at the aura of love surrounding Sam and his family. He spoke the words over Charles Wolf McCallister Jr., and Charlie and Naomi held their son and pledged to guide Wolf on the path of a true warrior.
Granted, Deacon improvised with the christening, delivering it in words that embraced the complexities of both the Indian and white spirit worlds. But that didn’t make the occasion any less solemn or real.
When the last baptism candidate stood before him, Deacon touched Miri’s forehead with a drop of the mountain water Charlie had fetched from the purest stream.
“And do you, Miracle Beauregard McCallister, accept me as your guide and teacher as I accept the miracle of you? Will you follow the path to the Source of all Knowledge as we learn the way together?”
Her nod was jerky, her whispered acceptance a husky, “Yes.”
Deacon settled the white shawl around her shoulders, much as he’d wrapped each baby in a christening blanket. “May we all walk in the path of truth and leave treachery and discord behind.”
Later, Miri swore she’d felt a tingle of warmth brush over her as Deacon said his words. Ketchum had rumbled a deep response in his throat as if he felt an otherworldly touch too.
After the christenings, the gift-giving and another slice each of Eden’s apple pie, Miri sat in the front room of the McCallister house, surrounded by family as the end of Christmas 1884 drew near.
Deacon met her gaze and winked, making her grin.
“It was a mighty fine year, partner,” she drawled in Beauregard’s voice, a persona she liked to don when emotion threatened to overwhelm her.
“Only the first of many, wife,” Deacon answered, crossing the room to hug her to his side.
Because of the late hour, the knock on the front door startled all of them. Deacon left the front room with Charlie and Sam close behind. The Eclipse sheriff stood with two other people on the porch when the McCallisters opened the door.
“Merry Christmas, Hiram. Always a pleasure to see you,” Deacon greeted him.
Ketchum, wearing a holiday bow, growled softly as he took his place in the line of McCallister males.
“You’re back,” Miri whooped and skidded across the floor, flinging her arms around Hiram for a bear hug.
“Yep, and brought you a present.” He nodded at the man and woman standing behind him.
“Ben, Laura?”
Deacon waited as Miri hugged the woman and pumped the man’s hand, then turned to him with an introduction.
“This is my husband, Robert McCallister. Deacon, these are my friends who run the Hearth and Home. We met back when we were all strays left to grow up in the Tennessee Home for Foundlings and Orphans. Why we’ve known each other…” Whatever else she had been going to say, her welcoming expression changed to puzzlement and her words piddled to a halt.
“What might you folks be doing away from the orphanage on Christmas Eve?” As he asked, Deacon held Miri’s hand, entwining her fingers with his.
The woman named Laura began to cry, Ben looked belligerent and then crumbled as Hiram revealed what they’d been up to.
“The crate you sent came back on the stage. I asked the driver, Conner Spokes about it. He said it being an orphanage and you wanting them to get their presents, he tried to
make delivery. When he couldn’t find it, he asked around. There is no Hearth and Home for Orphans and Foundlings.”
“Well that can’t be right. Mr. Stokes must have gotten confused.” Ben and Laura flinched under the evidence of Miri’s trust.
Hiram shook his head grimly. “Nope. I wired the Dyer County sheriff in Tennessee and he met me when I got into town. We decided to personally check on those orphans you’ve been paying for. Imagine our surprise when the Hearth and Home turned out to be a fancy hotel.”
Clearly Hiram didn’t want to deliver the information, but he did just the same. Ben and Laura didn’t bother with a denial.
“All that money you supplied for the schooling, feeding and day-to-day tending of seven children ranging in age from three to twelve—there is no Bobbi, Alice, Jeannie, Jimmy, Caroline, Lollie or Seth. You’ve been investing in a mighty nice hotel. I brought these two along because if you didn’t hear it from the miscreants themselves, I knew you’d never believe you’ve been swindled.”
Deacon didn’t expect Miri to cry or show her upset, but he didn’t expect her to laugh either.
“No kids, huh?” She skewered Laura with a shrewd look. “I bet this was your idea, wasn’t it? You always were good at laying out a plan and following through.”
Miri seemed completely unperturbed when she escorted her two former friends to the kitchen where she served them pie and coffee.
“You’re in charge of her now, McCallister. I can quit worrying.” Hiram settled down with his dessert, listening to the story Ben and Laura told. According to them, they’d seen the hotel as a grand investment of Miri’s money. They, of course, had intended to tell her the truth but hadn’t gotten around to it.
“You were so excited about the children, I didn’t want to tell you the way of it and let you down.” A fat tear trickled down the woman’s cheek and Deacon felt momentary sympathy.
“Forget about the tears. As I recall, you could turn them on and off.” Miri laughed again.
Deacon decided Miri had her old friend pegged right, because the tears evaporated as soon as it was clear they wouldn’t buy any sympathy.
“We need to get back,” Ben muttered, glaring at Hiram. “We had to leave the manager in charge.”
“A manager, huh?” Miri went into peals of laughter again and Deacon worried that maybe she was hysterical. But when she sobered up, she said slyly, “Me and my husband will have a look at the books come the first of the year. Sounds like we own a fair share of the hotel. Wouldn’t that be right, Deacon?”
“Yep. And Hiram says it’s right smack in the middle of town, with twenty-five rooms to let.”
“The Dyer County sheriff says they keep ’em full most of the time.” Hiram poured a second cup of coffee and leaned back, studying the two.
“We have worked hard to build—” Laura began defensively.
“Using my wife’s money,” Deacon cut off her excuse.
“A third each,” Ben offered. “Our work should count for—”
“Half,” Miri said and smiled. “I appreciate your labor. But I worked hard too to get you the money.”
“Are you going to have us arrested?” Laura asked tensely.
“Naw,” Miri answered and let Deacon draw her out of the room. “Best not tarry long in Eclipse. You’ve got a business to keep running so my investment wasn’t for naught.”
She even stood in the doorway and called after them, “Merry Christmas” when Hiram ushered them back into the night. Before he left, he said he’d let the law know about the new ownership details.
Instead of traveling back to their cabin by the river, Deacon and Miri elected to stay over and have breakfast with the rest of the McCallister family. The women had decreed it a new tradition, an idea that warmed Deacon’s heart in places he’d not realized were cold.
His former bedroom lacked the warmth of Annie’s cabin and he almost regretted staying over. It also lacked privacy. He propped a chair against the bedroom door to keep it shut and divested himself of his clothes, but Miri beat him in her disrobing and jumped in the bed first.
“I ’spect you think I’m a ninny,” she said self-consciously, sitting in the bed with her knees drawn up, staring at him.
“Nope,” he answered smugly. “I think you’re a force of nature, a gift from God to Laura and Ben as well as me. I think you’re a miracle.” He slid under the blanket and pulled her into his arms, nuzzling her behind the ear until she dissolved into giggles.
“I love you, Deacon Robert McCallister,” she whispered. “Don’t take on about the kids. I reckon we’ll have our own young’uns someday.”
Deacon didn’t explain that he’d developed no fond yearnings for seven unknown youngsters. Instead he settled next to her, leaving the lamp on as he handed her the paper Hiram had left behind.
Miri unfolded the letter, scanning the contents, and Deacon watched her expression change from curious to ecstatic. The letter identified Miri and Robert McCallister as legal agents of the state of Texas.
“It’s stretching the truth a mite, isn’t it?” she asked cautiously.
“Nope. Hiram said he cleared it with Logan Doyle before he wrote it. The state bankers and lawmen are grateful for us bringing in the counterfeiters and stolen plates.”
“Well, I reckon we’ve got some detecting to do then, partner. Where to next, preacher man?”
“Anywhere is home when I’m with you, Mrs. McCallister.” Deacon pulled Miri into his embrace and settled himself between her thighs. “I’ll love you forever, sweetheart,” he whispered before sliding deep inside her wet heat, where he needed to be.
About Gem Sivad
Gem Sivad is a multi-published, award-winning author. She crafts stories about fictional worlds of half light and half shadow. Gem writes about roaming alpha males, unsavory outlaws, and fearless women who use their wits and powers of seduction in their struggles to survive.
Because Gem believes romance is the essence of life, every hard-bitten male finds his mate, and even a strong-willed woman accepts the lover who is the other half of her soul.
Visit her website for her current projects and books coming soon.
Gem welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email addresses on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.
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Also by Gem Sivad
Call Me Miz
Eclipse Heat: Wolf’s Tender
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Eclipse Heat 2: Quincy’s Woman
Eclipse Heat 3: Perfect Strangers
Hexual Healing
Pinch of Naughty
Ellora’s Cave Publishing
www.ellorascave.com
Trouble in Disguise
ISBN 9781419938368
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Trouble in Disguise Copyright © 2013 Gem Sivad
Edited by Jillian Bell
Cover design by Mina Carter
Cover photography by MJTH and Catmando/Shutterstock.com
Electronic book publication June 2013
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
