Double Chance Claim [Badlands 3] (Siren Publishing Menage Amour) (11 page)

Margaret,

You made your decision to leave for the Wild West after embarrassing us by participating in a disgraceful manner with a man we didn’t approve of and now you want us to fund your return? You may now live with your inappropriate choices. Do not ever contact us again.

There hadn’t been a signature at the end of the terse-toned note, although she suspected this message undoubtedly came from her father.

Maggie was at the end of whatever hopeful attitude sustained her thus far. A nagging thought erupted in the form of Sadie’s persuasive and firm tactics. Maggie hoped there wouldn’t be serious repercussions to her refusal to snag the attention of Wyatt and bend him to Sadie’s will.

She had until tomorrow morning to deliver her answer to Sadie’s hotel room. The insistent madam wasn’t going to like her unwillingness to help. But she didn’t care.

The answer of what might become of her in this harsh landscape overrode her fear of Sadie. For now.

Chapter Nine

Wyatt left the quiet of the saloon and went down to Joe’s store to pick up the weekly supplies. Wade purposefully left it for him to do in retaliation for the week before. Sometimes his brother could be so infantile.

“Howdy, Wyatt.” Joe wouldn’t look him directly in the eyes, but instead made a big show of dusting his shop as if it were a life or death matter.

“Don’t hurt yourself cleaning so hard. I’m not angry about your earlier visit.”

Joe promptly dropped the cloth he’d been very intently wiping the counter with and smiled. “Good. I’d hate to lose one of my very best customers to stupid gossip and pressure from others. I probably shouldn’t have come down there, but I also wanted to warn you about all the talk going on around town.”

“I appreciate that.” Wyatt cracked a smile and shrugged. “As I said, Maggie ran out of money and needed a place to stay. I couldn’t in good conscience turn her away.”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me. It’s your business, but the townsfolk have to flap their gums about something. Speaking of which, and just so you know, I noticed Sadie has been spending a lot of time with your girl at the hotel and around town. I suspect she’s trying to influence her. She’s still intent on going into business with you. Just as intent as you are
not
to run a whorehouse.”

Shit.
That’s all I need.
Extra pressure from unexpected places to make the empty rooms upstairs into a brothel. “Thanks for the information. You’re right. I’m not interested in selling the sexual favors of women for a living. Sadie can find another place.”

“You might want to think about making your upstairs another small hotel, Wyatt. The town’s only other hotel is usually filled to capacity. You could make some extra money.”

“Nope. It’s more trouble than it’s worth. I like the quiet privacy of having the place to myself after everyone leaves. If I make it a hotel, there will be people traipsing in and out all the time. I prefer solitude over the few dollars I’d make renting rooms. But thanks for looking out for me, Joe.”

Joe laughed. “Well, that’s what friends are for. If there’s anything I can do to help, I hope you’ll let me know.”

“Sure thing. You’d be the first person I seek for friendly advice.”
With the exception of Wade.
Joe nodded and ducked behind the counter and motioned for Wyatt to follow into the storeroom at the back.

Wyatt piled his list of goods into a cart for pickup later and headed back to the saloon with the first load in his arms. Joe Stanton was a good friend. A part of him hated to lie to Joe, but once on this path, it would be difficult to explain their secret without causing hard feelings.

There were times when Wyatt wondered at the judgment of keeping their motives and identity furtive. Initially, they’d done it to keep the land a secret to stem the competition. The city of Lead, northwest of Campbell’s Valley, and also Deadwood, had become thick with get-rich-quick gold seekers from all across the states.

He and Wade wanted a quiet place to seek their fortune, not a chaotic, dirty existence fraught with worry over land rights and the like. There were plenty of stories and legends born in mining camps both in South Dakota and California that kept him quiet.

So he talked himself out of feeling guilty over the deception.

The reason they suspected the parcel of land held a cache of gold was because of a woman back home who was said to be half Indian on her father’s side. She was ignored by the so-called “decent” people in their hometown, but Wyatt and Wade’s dad hired her to keep house shortly after their mother died.

Kimimela, had been treated poorly by her last employer and became a fond member of their male-dominated family. Wyatt suspected his father fell in love with Kimi, as they nicknamed her, but didn’t make his feelings known until after they left home.

Kimi told him and Wade countless bedtime stories about the Dakota lands throughout their childhood. She spun stories of golden caves and adventures in the woods of a far off land. When they’d gone back home for their father’s funeral last year, she confided in them that the cave wasn’t a fairytale. She gave them a fairly detailed map of where to find the land she’d grown up near and revealed a hidden cave very near what was now Campbell’s Valley.

She urged them to buy the land and make their fortune.

Wade had been ecstatic about heading to the Dakota Territory on an adventure in search of secret gold. Wyatt, meanwhile, remained skeptical of hidden treasure or finding anything of value in the middle of nowhere, but Kimi was insistent. They pooled their money and bought the thirty-acre piece of land for a very reasonable price. Considering they
had
found gold in the hidden cave centered in their parcel, the investment had been a very wise one. And a lot of hard work.

Wyatt abandoned his thoughts of how he got here when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up in warning that he was being watched. Without stopping or changing his stride, he swept the area with an eye for the unusual. Wade must have already left for the mine because Lucky wasn’t hitched to the back rail. As he passed the empty building next to the saloon, Wyatt noticed a well-used pair of cowboy boots behind an abandoned wagon.

Someone
was
watching him.

Worse, the space where the stranger hid was in direct line with the back entrance to their saloon. If Mr. Boots had been there all morning, he probably saw Wade leave for their mine.

Wyatt walked slowly to the porch at the rear entry to the saloon, pretending there wasn’t some stranger watching his every step. He shouldered the door open, turning toward the wagon next door as he pushed it wider. He casually looked to his left in time to see the blur of an unidentifiable man wearing the dusty boots scramble away in a hurry.

Damn
. Who knew their secret now?

* * * *

Sadie Winters fidgeted in the uncomfortable side chair gracing the hotel’s “best” room. With the possibility of finally securing the upper level of the Double Chance Saloon as her base of operations so close to finally being realized, she found her level of anxiety difficult to temper with any realistic patience.

“Where is that girl?” she mumbled to herself and resisted the urge to rise and part the lace curtains on the east window to check for Maggie’s return. A quick look at the room’s small desk clock signaled only a few minutes had passed since she’d checked the last time.

Sadie had made it very clear to Maggie what she expected as an answer to her final offer, but anything could happen.

A knock on the door startled her as if she hadn’t been expecting it, but she had. Unable to suppress a grin, she rose quickly and went to the ornate door. “Who is it?” she inquired an instant before turning the chiseled glass knob.

“It’s me, Ronald,” came a familiar voice as Sadie whisked the heavy door wide open.

Displeasure sucked the smile from her lips as quickly as dawn stole the night. “What are you doing here?” It wouldn’t do to let anyone see the company she kept.

Ronald, her unofficial assistant since her partner Henry had disappointed her, stood like a rock centered in the frame of the door. Sadie grasped his shirt front and pulled him inside before anyone caught a glimpse of him loitering around her room.

Pulling the dilapidated cowboy hat from his balding head, Ronald stumbled inside far enough for her to close the door.

“I seen something strange at the saloon.”

“What do you mean something strange? Is it something I can use to blackmail Wyatt?” Sadie had sent Ronald to watch the saloon with the hopes of getting some juicy dirt on Wyatt that she could use for leverage. Maggie was too wishy-washy about hurting Wyatt after he’d let her stay overnight. She needed a backup plan just in case.

“I don’t know about that, but it’s a mystery.”

“What are you talking about? What mystery?”

He crushed his hat to his chest and leaned forward as if about to impart confidential information. “I seen Wyatt go over to Joe’s place to pick up supplies. And then I went and got a drink at the hotel and watched for him to come back, but I didn’t see him come by. I snuck over to the back of the place where I figured he’d be coming and damned if I didn’t see him exit the bar and ride off on his horse.”

“Where did he go?”

“Dunno. He just rode off.”

Sadie sent her gaze to the ceiling and back to his pinched face. “So what’s the big mystery?”

“Well, I had to duck behind a wagon and some brush so he wouldn’t see me and then I waited to make sure he didn’t come back right away.”

Rapidly losing patience, Sadie glared. “Yes. And?”

“And then a few minutes later, I seen him come from the opposite direction carrying a box of stuff from Joe’s place and enter in the back of the saloon as pretty as you please.”

Sadie shook her head. “So maybe he rode his horse to the town’s stable and then left it there before he finished up at Joe’s place.”
Idiot
. She employed a total idiot. “You are so dense, Ronald. What’s the mystery?”

“Well…” He paused, and his gaze narrowed as if he were trying to remember something buried deep within his thick skull.

After a full ten seconds of silence, his eyes suddenly widened as if inspiration finally registered. He looked back at her with an odd gleam of lucidity in his eyes. “He was wearing different clothes when he came back the second time than what he wore riding out of town on his horse.”

* * * *

Maggie got out of bed and dressed in a hurry as Wade readied himself to leave for an undisclosed destination. He told her he’d be back in a week. It was all very thrilling, being a part of a secret. No wonder they didn’t want to have a brothel upstairs. Their secret wouldn’t last very long with the clientele traffic in and out at all hours of the day and night.

Wade kissed her soundly on the mouth and then slipped downstairs a few minutes after Wyatt left to pick up supplies. Maggie remained upstairs and straightened the room. She watched Wade ride out of town from the second-story window. It was still fairly early and not too many folks were out and about at this time of morning. Neither of them needed to be seen in the saloon today. But she found it more and more difficult to care what others thought of her behavior with Wade and Wyatt.

The female population could gossip themselves silly about her circumstances for all she cared. They weren’t worth her concern. If the brothers didn’t care, then she decided she didn’t either.

Instead of worrying about her status in town, she determined her first plan of action was to tell Sadie where to stick her business offer. She wasn’t even going to tell Wyatt or Wade about Sadie’s insistence of letting her be the hostess for all the girls who would be parading around, if they allowed her into the saloon. In fact, she wasn’t even going to tell them that Sadie had approached her.