Ace's Wild (3 page)

“I don’t think that was the plan.”

“It’s still the result. Not like you can mistake who their fathers are.”

Damn, now he was sounding just like Petunia.

“It would have been better for those children if their mother had just left town with them.”

“And leave their meal ticket?” Ace shook his head. “No way in hell. As long as those kids exist, Hester has leverage.”

“But they don’t exist. They’re not allowed out of that awful house,” Maddie added. “And that little girl, she’s almost eight now...”

Maddie’s voice broke. Caden rubbed her arm. The one thing Maddie knew all about was how a little girl growing up in a whorehouse lived on the edge of trouble. It made him burn to think about the life Maddie had been forced to live before coming to Hell’s Eight. Petunia was right about one thing. No child deserved that.

Pressing her hand briefly over Caden’s, Maddie took a step back, straightened her hair and then her skirt. Ace said nothing, letting her gather her composure, regretting it as soon as she did, because she turned those soulful green eyes on him again and declared, “You need to help Hester.”

“I do?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re wrong about her.”

Ace sighed. It didn’t really matter whether he was right or wrong about Hester. When it came to the kids, Petunia and Maddie were right. The situation was getting bad. Hester needed to take those kids and leave town. Or Dougall, their father, was going to have to claim them, but they couldn’t be left to be as they were living in the whorehouse. He thought of the little girl, pretty face, pretty hair, but still a little girl and tempting to some. Unprotected except by her mother and a couple of the nicer whores, but their ability to guard her was limited. And if it was decided she needed to earn her keep, then earn her keep she would.

“It’s a mess, and Petunia’s meddling is going to make it blow up before anything can be done.”

“She means well,” Caden interjected.

“She always means well.” Ace growled as the aggravation swelled within him. “She meant well when she decided every child at school should have a decent lunch.”

“She was right,” Maddie chimed in. “They should.”

“Except that those families that couldn’t afford it now live with the mockery of others, and Simon Laramie is gunning for her ass because the whole world now knows that he can’t feed his own kids.”

“It’s not her fault he chose to make a public spectacle of it.”

Simon was new to the area, and he wasn’t established, and the drought hadn’t helped. He wasn’t the only one feeling the pinch or the weather. But he was the most vocal about being made a public charity case.

“His pride was on the line.”

“His children were hungry,” Maddie countered.

“She could have gone about it differently.”

“Be fair, Ace,” Caden interjected. “You know Laramie is about as stiff-necked an ass as there is. He’d rather see those kids starve to death than admit he needed help.”

“Well, that little mess of Petunia’s took a bit to clear up.” And he’d been the one who’d had to do it. He rubbed the knuckles of his right hand, experiencing again that satisfying moment when it’d connected with Laramie’s mouth. Petunia might be a pain in the ass but she wasn’t—as Laramie put it—a bitch.

“But now he’s your enemy and not hers,” Maddie said as if that were the way it should be.

“Oh, he’s her enemy, too. Make no mistake about that.”

“But he’ll have to go through you to get to her.”

“Shit, Ace, you might as well call Petunia Hell’s Eight and get it over with.”

“That will never happen.”

The look Caden shot him was almost as pitying as Maddie’s. “Uh-huh.”

Their knowing expressions were almost as annoying as Petunia’s tendency to gather enemies in her wake. The longer Petunia stayed in town, the more her problems were going to become his, because Caden was right, he couldn’t leave her to whomever. She might be a pain in the ass, but in an odd way she’d become
his
pain in the ass. That being the case, she needed to get on that stagecoach. For both their sakes.

Down the street at the church, people were beginning to meander free of their socializing. Petunia disappeared into the schoolhouse. “Somebody’s got to rein that woman in.”

“I vote for you.”

It was his turn to say, “Uh-huh.”

“It’s not like she’s going to be around much longer,” Maddie argued. “Just as soon as she gets the money for a coach ticket, she’s moving on.”

“She’s been saving for that ticket for a long time,” Caden interjected.

Yeah, she had. And she still wasn’t gone. Mighty suspicious that. “You
sure
she’s planning on moving on?”

Maddie suddenly became all business, straightening her apron and smoothing her hair. “Looks like customers are heading this way. Time to get busy.”

The back of Ace’s neck tingled. Maddie was not the fussing type. Especially when it came to business. She was up to something. He looked at Caden. Caden shrugged and looked at his wife.

“Out with it, Maddie.”

She sighed and dropped the pretense. “It’s not that Petunia doesn’t plan on leaving—”

Ace got that sinking feeling in his gut. “But?”

Maddie shrugged. “But there were things that she felt needed doing here first.”

“Things?” Ace asked. “What things?” What the hell had Petunia gotten herself into now?

“You remember Penelope?”

“Clyde Peyton’s widow?”

“Yes. She broke her leg.”

“Yeah, I remember. Doc set it. Said it healed fine.”

“She couldn’t work while it was broken.”

“And?” There was always an “and” with Petunia.

“She couldn’t feed her kids because Michael Orvis wouldn’t extend her credit at the mercantile.”

Ace sighed. “Don’t tell me.”

“Petunia used her savings to pay off what she could of the bill, so Mr. Orvis would give Penny more credit.”

“So you’re saying, she’s nowhere near the price of her ticket.”

Ace didn’t know if he was relieved or annoyed.

“You could just buy it for her,” Caden pointed out.

“If I thought I could get her to take it, I would.” That was a lie. He had a lust/hate relationship with Petunia’s presence in town. More lust than hate. More want than was sensible.

“So what are we going to do?” Maddie asked.

“Why do we have to do anything?” Ace asked. “Can’t we just let her suffer the consequences of her actions, for once?”

Maddie looked horrified at the very thought. “She has no idea of the potential repercussions. She’s used to Eastern ways.” She turned to Caden. “Do something.”

“Don’t put me in this,” Caden said.

Maddie glanced down the street where her Sunday customers were meandering their way. “Please?”

Caden rocked back in the chair as she hurried back into the bakery. The bell above the door jangled a protest. “You heard the little woman.”

Ace bit down hard on his back molars, reaching for patience. “I’m tired of cleaning up Petunia’s messes. I’m not her father. I’m not her brother. I’m not her husband.”

“But you want her,” Caden said, putting it right out there.

“There’s nothing about the woman to want. She wears her hair scraped back so tight her eyebrows meet her ears. And if her corset were laced any tighter, she’d die of suffocation.”

Caden laughed and waved to the folk approaching. “You ought to be grateful for that. More wind means more words.”

“I don’t need more words from that woman.”

“Yes, you do, just sweeter ones.”

“You could dump a bucket of sugar on that woman, and she wouldn’t be sweet enough.”

Maddie fussed with the tray of buns and called out, “I think the right man could sweeten her up.”

“Eavesdropping isn’t an attractive trait,” Ace snapped at her.

“But a useful one.”

Ace shook his head at Caden. “She isn’t even ashamed of it.”

“Why should she be?” Caden asked with a fond look at his wife. “It gets her what she wants to know.”

“You should be setting a better example.”

Caden snorted. “Since when have any of us worried about what others thought?”

Since never.

Maddie stopped sorting the rolls and looked straight at him. “In that case, Ace Parker, you could stop saving her and just start courting her.”

For the first time in a long time, Ace flinched. “I’m a gambler and a brawler.”

“You’re a good man with a good heart, but you run too much.”

He didn’t need Maddie weaving rainbows around the impossible. “Let it go, Maddie.”

“Letting it go doesn’t change the truth. You want her.” She came back to the porch, licking frosting off her fingers. “She wants you. You have many things in common, including a passion for doing the right thing. The only difference between you is she’s open about it.”

“Gambling is not the right thing.”

Maddie huffed. “Gambling bores you.”

“The hell it does.”

Caden touched Maddie’s shoulder. “Let it go, Maddie mine.”

She slammed her hands on her hips and jerked her chin at Ace. “So he can continue doing what he doesn’t like doing? So he can continue to be unhappy?”

“A man’s got a right to be unhappy if he wants to be.”

“But it’s silly when everything he wants is just an arm’s reach away. He’s just too afraid to grab it.”

The hell he was. Frustration and anger prodded. Frustration because customers were gathering, and he couldn’t say what he wanted. Anger because Maddie didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. The last thing any woman needed was for him to give in to the needs that drove him. Especially a prim and proper woman like Petunia. Just the thought of touching her the way she needed had his blood heating dangerously.

On a tight “I’ll see you later,” Ace turned on his heel and strode down the street, absently nodding in response to greetings, his mind consumed with the thought of pinning Petunia’s wrists to the bed, of kissing her so deeply her thoughts became transparent, her body pliant, her will his... He clenched his hands into fists, fighting back the desire. “Fuck.”

Behind him he heard Caden say, “That was too much, Maddie.”

And from Maddie, an uncharacteristic “I’m not sure it was enough.”

CHAPTER TWO

T
HE
SMALL
ONE
-
ROOM
schoolhouse was quiet in the minutes before the day started, but soon Petunia would walk out the sturdy wooden door and ring the bell, and the excitement would start. Twenty children from the ages of five to thirteen would push through the doorway, sit at their desks and look at her with expressions ranging from boredom to anticipation. Educating growing minds was a hard job, a taxing job and one Petunia loved. But as soon as she saved the money for her ticket, she was going to hop on the stage and continue on to San Francisco to take advantage of the newly wealthy’s desire to compete socially with East Coast established society. If she were careful, she could take that desire to “do them one better” and use it to open a school that would fund her dream to truly educate all.

Just thinking about leaving brought Ace to mind. And bringing Ace to mind just revived the familiar combination of ache and anger. Just who did that man think he was to take apart her way of life as if there was something wrong with it? He, who was in the middle of every fight, every scheme, every betting game that took place in this town.

And in the middle of every type of aid, too,
the little voice of fairness inside whispered.

Damn it!
Petunia erased the word she’d just misspelled on the chalkboard and started over. Just once she wanted to catch Ace doing something so wrong, so evil, that this irrational attraction she had for him would die an ignoble death. But every time she’d seen him fight, he’d been defending someone, and while she didn’t approve of gambling, he didn’t do it recklessly. He did drink more than she approved of, but when he was drunk, he never harmed anyone. He just got more quiet from what she could tell, more mysterious.

She sighed as she set the chalk down and dusted off her hands. The one thing she didn’t need was for Ace to become any more mysterious. He already had too much appeal for her.

As was her habit, she went behind her desk and set up her papers in the order of what her lesson was going to be for the day. She started simply and then worked up to the more complicated for the older students. She was going to be losing Analisa soon. Unfortunately, her mother wanted her home to help with her siblings and the work around their small farm. Analisa had a bright mind and a desire to learn. She’d asked Petunia for help, to convince her parents to let her stay in school. Unfortunately, no matter how much Petunia tried, she couldn’t convince her parents of the importance of continuing their daughter’s education. As long as Analisa could read, write and count, the adults in her life seemed satisfied.

Petunia shook her head and set her math book to the side. They just couldn’t see the brand-new world out there waiting for them and the possibilities that existed. They just wanted to stay in this little town, in this little world, in this little spot and ignore it all. She shook her head. She would never understand it.

Outside the door, she could hear the students playing in the small school yard. She always gave them this time. They seemed to have so little time to just enjoy being young.

Sighing, Petunia placed the creative writing instructional on the top of the second pile. She might only have these children’s minds for the period of time it took her to earn the money for her stage ticket. But in that time, she intended to plant the seeds of curiosity and just maybe, in one of them, that seed would grow, and they would see something of the world besides this tiny town. At least that was her hope.

From the yard came the regrettably familiar sound of a singsong chant. Frowning, she went back to the window. She wasn’t surprised to see a slight boy with shaggy hair and threadbare clothing cornered by a bigger boy. Every school yard had its victims and its bullies. And here the bully was Buster, and the victim was Terrance Winter, probably because he had the look of a child whose family didn’t care, and in a town this small, neglect was like throwing a red rag in a chicken pen. They all started pecking.

Petunia opened the heavy door in time to hear, “Fatty lip, fatty lip, Terry isn’t worth a shit.”

Gritting her teeth, she reached up and rang the bell. Hard. All sound stopped. One by one, the children trickled to line up in front of the short steps. All except Terry and his tormentor.

“Buster Hayworth,” she snapped. “Line up, please.”

A murmur rippled through the line of children. Some kids ooh’d, others giggled. Buster came reluctantly around the corner, the shock of blond hair on his forehead standing up straight as it always did, the expression on his face angelic. She’d learned on the first day when he stuck a frog in her desk drawer not to fall for the false sincerity in his big blue eyes.

“You’ll be staying after class tomorrow. I’d appreciate it if you informed your parents of that.”

“But, Miss Wayfield, I was only—”

She cut off the protest with a wave of her hand. “You were only trying to make someone else’s life miserable within
my
earshot, in
my
school. You know that’s not allowed.”

He opened his mouth. She cut him off again.

“I don’t want to hear it. You will inform your parents tonight that you will be staying after school tomorrow. No excuses.”

His eyes got bigger. “My dad will blister my butt.”

Something she felt needed to be done. “Well, then, maybe the double punishment will make you think the next time before you decide to be mean-spirited to one of your own.”

Buster scowled. “He’s not one of mine.”

“He’s a student in this class. That makes him part of your school family. You should be helping him, not hurting him. The world would be a better place if everyone did that.”

He looked at her askance, hands in his pockets. “You don’t know much about the world, do you, Miss Petunia?”

She looked back at him. “I know a lot about it. I just don’t accept that what is must always be.”

He shook his head, gave her one last wheedling smile. She pointed to the line unmoved. He went.

“Now, all of you sit down and get out your slates and start practicing your alphabet until I get there. You older kids help the younger ones, and Buster—” she stopped him at the door “—I want to see your letters improve. They were very sloppy last Friday.”

After the last child wandered in, Petunia sighed and went in search of Terrance.

She found him standing by the back steps, hands still in his pockets and his head still down. He was so young to have so much life beaten out of him. Petunia approached him slowly. Reaching the steps, she tucked her skirts under her and sat down so she wouldn’t tower over him. She’d always found it was easier to do that when she was dealing with children.

He still didn’t look at her. She was afraid she knew why. Putting her finger under his chin, she lifted his face and barely suppressed a gasp. His lower lip was split open and swollen, and his eye was black-and-blue. The bruise spread down his cheek and followed his jawline to his chin. The kind of mark only a man’s fist could make.

She didn’t need to ask who’d done this. But the severity of the beating... It was a wonder Terrance’s father hadn’t killed him.

She touched his cheek delicately. Why did it have to be her student most interested in learning whose world made it so impossible for him to succeed? “What happened?”

He shrugged. “You know.”

“Pretend I don’t. Tell me.”

“Pa got into a game last night.”

Standing, she took his hand and walked toward the well. “I take it he wasn’t successful.”

He shook his head. “No, he lost everything.”

She took a clean handkerchief out of her pocket when they reached the well, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Everything?”

“Everything.”

Petunia had never seen such hopelessness in a face of any age. Dipping her handkerchief into the bucket of cool water she’d drawn earlier, she pressed it to his eye. He winced and blinked at her with the other. His hazel eyes didn’t have the artifice of Buster’s, but they had the appeal of sincerity.

“I’m sorry, Terrance.”

He nodded and swallowed hard. “I might be leaving.”

Petunia was probably the only one who understood how devastating that revelation was to a boy more suited to scholar than farmer.

“But we haven’t even finished the story of Ulysses.”

It was a stupid thing to say.

He looked at her with a bit of hope. “Maybe you can tell it to me real fast.”

“Maybe.” She dipped the cloth again and applied it to his lip. Again the wince. “Or maybe we can just do something about the situation.”

Terrance shook his head. “Nothing to be done. Dad lost the mortgage money to that gambler, Ace.”

And had come home to take out his frustration on his son. “I see.”

“Everybody knows what’s Ace Parker’s stays Ace Parker’s.”

“Do you think he cheated?”

He looked horrified. “Ace? No.”

She did not understand how the boy could idolize the man who’d just taken everything from him.

His gaze slid from hers. “My pa might have, though. He was pretty beat up when he came in.”

Gambling room justice. Petunia shook her head. Only a man could understand it. It was nothing to put a family out on the street. But let a man cheat at cards, and all damnation broke loose.

“I see,” she said again. “Well, Terrance, I’m glad you came to school today.”

“I wanted to hear Ulysses.”

She’d begun reading them
Ulysses Tales
, a little bit at a time, changing the language so the kids could comprehend the greater message, making it fun and entertaining.

“I’m glad you came, even though it was hard, and you must be hurting.”

“I’ve had worse.”

Yes, he had but if she had her way, there wouldn’t be any more. Terrance was a prime example of why the type of boarding school she wanted to establish needed building. “And maybe after school today we can see if something can be done about your problem.”

He shook his head and stepped back. “Pa is who he is.”

Yes, he was. “But you love him.”

A boy should love his father. But more important, a man should be worthy of that love.

Ducking his head, Terrance shrugged his shoulders. “I used to. He didn’t used to always be this mad. Just since Ma’s been gone.”

She’d never been able to find out if Terrance’s mother had left or passed on.

“Sometimes life can be hard, but tomorrow can be much better.”

He didn’t even look at her on that one. She guessed she couldn’t blame him. For a child his age, life had to seem pretty darn impossible. Wringing out the handkerchief, she came to a decision.

“I’ll tell you what, Terrance. I can’t make any promises, but after school today, I’ll go talk to Mr. Parker.”

Hope sprang into Terrance’s eyes. She felt a pang at feeding it to him. To him, the schoolteacher was all powerful. And at the end of the day, she was going to have to be. Or learn to live with the guilt.

“You will? Thank you.”

She shook her head at him. “It’s not going to be that easy. As you said, Ace Parker isn’t one for letting things go.”

“But neither are you.”

He had a point there.

“You’re right, and I’m going to do my best to see if we can come up with some compromise that will fix your problem. All right?”

He nodded.

“Now do you want to go inside and practice your letters with everybody else, or do you want to be excused for the day?”

He grabbed up his books and headed to the door. She guessed that was an answer. She followed more slowly. For an eight-year-old boy, Terrance had a serious dedication to learning that if she had her way, would not be snuffed out. Not by his father, not by life and certainly not by a gambler with a possessive streak. Ace didn’t need the strip of land Terrance’s father pretended to farm. But Terrance did. Which meant just one thing. Ace was going to have to give it up.

* * *

P
ETUNIA
STOOD
OUTSIDE
the saloon and straightened the dark blue jacket of her most favorite suit, wishing the day wasn’t so unseasonably hot. Wishing she could just look the other way like so many people did. Wishing there was a way to keep her promise to Terrance without actually having to speak to Ace. Wishing she’d been able to run into him somewhere in town today rather than having to track him down in his lair. She stared at the saloon doors and bit her lip.

If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

The only other time she’d been in a saloon had been in the company of several suffragettes, and even that protest had been timed to occur during the hours of nonoperation. And it’d ended with her spending twenty minutes in jail before her father had fetched her out.

Truth be told, she’d been rather disappointed with the “grand adventure.” Outside of one picture featuring a scantily clad woman, the saloon had been bland and smelly and not at all the gaudily exciting place she’d expected to see. This building was probably the same. Bland and smelly and sparsely populated with the same people she saw on the street every day. So why was she standing here hesitating?

A movement down the street caught her attention. Terrance. He stood on the sidewalk watching her, hands clenched at his sides. His posture set to run. Clearly, he expected her to chicken out.

Well, he had another think coming. She was a Wayfield. The family motto, longer than most, spoke to noble attributes. But quitting wasn’t one of them. With a lift of her chin and small wave to Terrance, she stepped through the swinging doors.

Her initial thought as the gloom of the place surrounded her was this wasn’t so bad. On her first breath, she started to change her mind. The stench of stale sweat and sour beer hung thick in the still air. By the time her eyes adjusted in the dim light, she was ready to back right out. This was not her world. There was no optimism here. Just apathy reflected in the way a blonde woman dressed in a loosely tied wrapper sat at the long bar and picked at a plate of food. The thud of slamming wood made her jump.