Two Brides Too Many (27 page)

“Or you could teach your son to keep his feet to himself.”

The bulldog dropped the newspaper, and Lewis reached for the shield across from the boy’s feet. “Just who do you think you are—”

“Now, now.” The woman sitting next to the boy set her knitting on her lap and patted the leg of the man across the aisle from her. “Cool your smokestack, Boris, the man is right. I should’ve been payin’ Timmy more mind.” She turned to the brat with a stern crease in her brow. “Timmy, what do you say to the man?”

Grunting, the bulldog returned to his own world behind the newspaper.

“Timmy?”

“Sorry, mister.” He’d spit it off his tongue.

Lewis reached into his valise and pulled out a piece of the stationery his mother had given him. He had far better things to do with his time than to listen to men growl, women sigh, and children cry. He’d only had three hours’ sleep, and the clacking locomotive wheels and the stench of burning coal was more than enough to unravel his nerves. Each serpentine mile peeled another raw nerve back and split it, leaving him nauseated and travel weary, but he wasn’t about to let himself doze off and end up God only knows where. He’d learned that lesson well. Writing his mother was sure to keep him awake.

Lewis had just signed the letter when the whistle blew and the train pulled into the depot in Cripple Creek.

As Lewis stepped onto the platform, trying to make his way through the family reunions, he wondered if having a woman with a
welcoming voice might help mend his frayed nerves faster. The smack of bricks being stacked onto wagons and the screech of bucksaws overpowered the footfalls on the wood platform and the shouts and chatter of people greeting one another. Construction workers scurried everywhere.

Good, fresh blood in town to get into a game
.

Lewis carried his valise in one hand and the folded faro table in the other. He trusted no one with the object of his livelihood. He walked out around the depot and along Bennett Avenue. Eight or nine months had passed since he took his leave, and the town definitely had a new face. Tent businesses sat in the street in front of brick and sandstone buildings in various stages of completion. From this angle, it looked like very few businesses had survived the fires.

He angled toward the hill, thinking how his life was like this town. It has been beaten and bruised, but it was coming back, stronger than ever. In the past few weeks, he’d seen it all: mousy landladies with burly brothers, sore losers in train cars, pecking chickens, surly men in saloons. He’d had his fill. He’d endured more than his share of muscle aches and hungry nights. But things were about to change.

Paddy’s death made way for a new beginning, and Lewis wasn’t about to apologize for being happy about that. The man was a no-good drunk with a foul mouth and a caustic tableside manner. The past couple of years Lewis had been chewed up and spit out by everyone on his path, but now he was starting fresh. This opportunity had been a long time coming.

Now that his house was just round the corner, Lewis felt the nausea and the pain in his neck from the long trip subside. He picked up his pace on First Street and walked quickly all the way up to Golden
and over to Florissant. When he saw the charred remains of some places and new construction in others, his heartbeat raced. The paymaster said Paddy died in a saloon, not at home. Surely his cabin hadn’t burned, although it’d be just like Lewis’s luck to draw such a lousy hand.

He turned up Pikes Peak Avenue and walked past the first and second cabins, both still standing. He breathed a deep sigh of relief when he caught sight of the third one. As soon as he saw the outhouse out behind the plank board cabin, his pulse eased and his steps slowed as he surveyed the place. He’d never actually lived here, but he’d seen it, just after he lost it. The antlers and ropes that hung out front were gone, and a lace curtain draped the one glass window. It was not something a drunken miner would hang.

But a woman would
.

Paddy had either lost the place to a man with a woman, or he’d taken a wife. If a man was involved, he’d just have to walk away and make other living arrangements. No sense getting shot over a cabin. But if there was a widow, the house could be his before she knew what happened.

Lewis set his bag and folded faro table on the stoop and straightened his suit jacket before knocking on the door. The only sound he heard was the stove pipe rattling in the breeze. He’d knocked plenty loud enough for a one-room cabin, but he knocked again. When no one answered, he lifted the metal peg from the latch and opened the door to a clean and orderly household. Thinking better of leaving his things outside, he brought them in and set them near the door. He saw plenty of dresses and hats, and not one pair of overalls or trousers.

This definitely wasn’t the home of a miner. Not a live one, anyway.
Lewis ran his fingers over the cheery tablecloth. A stack of clean dishtowels sat on freshly papered shelves. He spied two trunks in the corner, and after a quick glance out the window, he lifted the lid on the first one. Underthings. A couple of books. Stationery. And a dishtowel wrapped around something heavy at the back of the trunk. Lewis gripped the towel, and his pulse began to race as he unwrapped the package. His lucky flask. A bit charred, but it had been salvaged. After sliding it into a pocket and closing the lid on the trunk, he crossed the room to the rope bed.

Lifting a corner of the clean quilt to his face, he breathed in the scent of woman. This might just work out even better than he’d thought. Paddy hadn’t lost the place to a man or sold it, and no woman who wore hats and dresses like these would set out to live here alone. Paddy had obviously found himself a wife, and the Widow Maloney was a refined woman.

So where was she?

It’s Sunday, Whibley
. He might have taken to praying of late, but church was a whole other matter. Not so for a cultured woman. She was no doubt at church this morning and would soon be on her way home. It wouldn’t set well for her to come home and find him inside.

Fortunately, he’d come on a sunny day. He’d just make himself at home on the stoop and wait for her. There’d be plenty of time to enjoy the trimmings of the indoors once she’d succumbed to his charms.

T
HIRTY
-F
IVE

K
at stood outside the basement door of the hospital with Nell and Rosita at her side. She would’ve preferred to speak to Morgan in person, but he hadn’t returned from church. He’d told Sister Coleman he planned to be out all afternoon, and she’d been kind enough to give Kat a piece of stationery to leave the man a note. If there was any chance that Morgan was married, he had to understand that she would not compromise her principles. She’d written down her concerns, and now all she had to do was slip the message under the door.

Nell stayed Kat’s arm. “He was talking to Darla when we arrived at the church, and left her to help you. You saw the way she batted her eyelashes at him in Hattie’s parlor. The way she cooed at him outside the café. I think she’s the kind of woman who might say or do anything to get what she wants.”

“And Morgan, what kind of man is he, really? You don’t believe he is married now”—Kat waved the sheet of paper—“but that doesn’t
change anything for me. If he ever has been married, he should have told me before he began showering me with attention.”

“Don’t leave the note. Wait until this evening.” Nell tugged on her arm. “Talk to him about it then. You don’t know that it’s true.”

Holding her ground, Kat looked up into Nell’s face. Her sister shared Hattie’s hopeless romantic ideals, but things weren’t always what they seemed. And they were certainly not always what one desired them to be. If anyone knew that, Kat did.

“I don’t know that Darla was lying.” She shook her head. She wanted to believe Morgan wasn’t married, and she wanted to believe that if he had been, he would have told her so, but something about the set of Darla’s face told her she believed what she was saying. “And I won’t make another mistake.”

He hadn’t told her much of anything about his past. Instead, he’d given her every indication that he wanted more than a friendship. The invitation for a carriage ride alone with her this evening was proof of that, and she’d accepted, not knowing any more about the man than that he’d come from a wealthy family in Boston and he played the piano. She may have chosen to live in a simple cabin in a community of miners, but she was a proper woman. Kat freed her arm from Nell’s hold and slipped the envelope under the door.

Kat held Rosita’s hand and clomped up the stairs, all the way out into the sunshine. As the three of them made their way up the hill to Florissant, Kat tugged her bonnet back from her forehead and tilted her face toward the warmth. This morning the pleasant change in the weather had her believing she’d entered a new season in her life. Morgan Cutshaw had played a central role in that speculation.

Now, she could only see him as a man who didn’t trust her enough
to tell her the truth. Thankfully, her sister knew her well enough to change the subject. It’s Sunday. “I want to play checkers this afternoon.” Nell sounded too cheery.

“We left the set with Ida and Viv.”

“You have paper, and we have red beans and lima beans. We can make do.”

“I was going to write to Viv and Father before Morgan came to call, but now that I’ve canceled those plans, I suppose I’ll have plenty of time for both.”

As they rounded the corner of Pikes Peak Avenue, Nell pointed toward the cabin. “Who is that?”

Kat had never seen the man who was sitting on the steps. He wore black breeches, a vest, and a top hat, and he was looking at something he held in his hands. He didn’t look at all like a miner. He looked more like a hawker, and she noticed a case of some sort propped against the stoop. “He probably wants to sell us the latest elixir for gout or some such thing.”

He looked toward them and shoved whatever he’d been studying into his vest. He stood, and a quizzical expression creased his chin as he descended the two steps to their level. “Ladies. Miss.” He looked down at Rosita, who peeked at him from behind Nell, and then back up at Kat. “I heard about Mr. Maloney’s unfortunate passing, and I’ve come to pay my respects, ma’am.” He removed his hat and held it to his chest. “I’m Lewis P. Whibley, at your service.”

The formal name didn’t improve the man’s image any. She didn’t see a wagon of potions or wares nearby, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t peddling something. Her mind churning, Kat straightened to her full height. This man wasn’t just a salesman passing through. He knew of
Patrick’s death and he knew where Patrick lived, but who was he and why was he on her stoop? It was entirely possible Patrick had family that no one in town knew about.

“Are you relation to Patrick, sir?”

“No ma’am, I lived here in Cripple Creek until eight or nine months ago.” He stared off toward the juniper before continuing. “Me and Paddy were business partners.”

Ollie had already collected Patrick’s horse for payment at his saloon. Could he have owed money to this man too?

“Business partners,” Kat repeated. “Patrick was a mucker, a drinker, and a carouser, Mr. Whibley. In which of those three enterprises were the two of you involved?”

He chuckled.

“You’re finding this entertaining?”

“Ma’am, I didn’t mean to offend you, but I do find your witty directness a bit amusing and refreshing.”

“You’ve shared your sympathies,” Kat said, brushing past him. “And now I’d appreciate it if you’d step aside.”

“I do need to speak with you about the cabin, ma’am.”

A headache began to form at the base of her neck.

“You asked about my business with him. Well, you might say Paddy and I were co-owners in this house. And now that he’s gone, I’ve come to take possession.”

Now the ache climbed the back of her head. “I have papers to prove this is my home.” She knew any papers she had could be contested in a court of law, but she’d learned from Patrick that a good bluff could go a long way. “You may as well just leave, sir, as I have no intention of sharing ownership of my house with any man.”

He looked around, as if he was not accustomed to doing any business in the open. “I’m sure we can reach an amicable agreement. I have the deepest respect and sympathy for widows, and I’d like to help you out any way I can.”

“Then kindly step aside.”

He frowned, but stepped aside, his hand motioning her toward the door.

Watching his every move, Kat climbed the steps with Rosita and Nell right behind her. The stench of his cheap toilet water burned her eyes as they passed him. Once Nell and Rosita were inside the cabin, Kat stood in the doorway and faced the man.

“This aloofness is so unnecessary, Mrs. Maloney.” He waved his hand at the distance between them. “I can see you worked hard to make this a fine home for you and Paddy, and I’m sure we could come to an agreement that could benefit us both.”

He would only have known she’d made it a fine home if he’d been inside. Kat’s blood began to boil. “You went inside?”