Unbroken Hearts (2 page)

Chapter 1

Miss Lola Brackle could scarcely believe her good
luck.

At last the ill winds of her fate had shifted, and sweet
destiny had driven a beautiful drifter straight through her whiskey-stained
front door.

Oh yes, she'd do nicely
. Lola's mortared face transformed from an aging
granite fortress to softness stirred with sweet emotion. Paint and powder
couldn't conceal the anticipation shining deep in her pigeon-gray eyes.

Leaning stiffly against the doorjamb Lola sized up the
lovely-but-destitute young woman who sat fidgeting on Lola's best
shipped-all-the-way-from-New-York parlor sofa -- a cherished piece that had escaped
tobacco spittle, beer tipples, and assorted other fluids common to her
business.

It was always something
, Lola thought.

The madame drew a deep breath, and on the exhale she
felt a curry brush dragging up her throat, riding on the burning aftertaste of
the previous evening's brandy.
Oh yes, always something
.

Grimacing, Lola turned her attention to another
something, making a quick assessment of the damage left in the wake of the
previous night's gale. The relentless crashing of bone-jarring gusts had
finally eased to a gentle ripple, and now smooth waves rolled calmly across the
prairie grasses. Slanting her gray eyes upward, Lola's gaze slid across her
five fancy windows. Only one had suffered a slight crazing down the right-most
pane.

Then her gaze lit again upon that
best something
,the fine young filly, trimmed with
silky chestnut hair, comely green eyes, and a cameo-ivory face. After a
cleaning and brief initiation to the business, thought Lola, this little
something
, slender but sturdy, would
truly
be grand.

Madame Lola gleefully folded her hands together. The
girl's youthful body would yield a mother lode, certainly more than enough to
escape the rising debt she owed her loan-vulture landlord, Mr. Jack Dullen.

Lola scowled at the thought of Dullen; the man had
gone and raised the rent, just as she was getting ahead. Her stomach roiled as
she recalled his demands to be her partner, and in more ways than one.

Yet, Lola had found success in a town where a woman needed
the brawn of two men, the brain of three, and the body of a harlot. She'd
abandoned girlish fantasies of fairy-tale bliss, and now middle age notched her steadily downward, crushing dreams into dry, harsh tumbleweed
prairie, until she settled on nurturing a small flame -- a fleeting wishful
thought of setting aside enough to retire and live out her remaining years
securely back east.

Suddenly the new
something
raised a trembling hand to her throat and coughed.
Startled, Lola broke from sweet reverie and raked her fingers through her
orange hair. Surely, she told herself, any slight illness could be quickly
brought to heel or, God help her, staved off with medicines.
 
She prayed it wasn't consumption.

The young woman coughed again. Lola felt urgency bite
at the pit of her belly. She wasn't a heartless woman; she'd thought to give
the new girl a day to rest, to get situated, eat a few good meals, and feel
safe. Now Lola released all good intentions, and, unyoked from her
conscience, she steered a new course.
 

This time the prize won't slip through my grasp
, she promised. A pink flush rose in her ruddy cheeks,
and she resolutely locked plump hands together. After all, business
was
business. This dove was as pretty as any decent woman
in town.
Prettier, damn it
. The
girl would look downright stunning wearing a fancy frock instead of that coarse
old work dress.
 

In her mind Lola sorted through the house wardrobe.
Her eyes darted fiercely to and fro as she pondered each dress, assessing the
color, cut, and fit. An inexplicable motherly pride gripped her as she chewed
on details of jewelry and makeup. She thought about how fortunes could rapidly
change in a one-horse mining town.
 

Lola grunted, awkwardly dragged herself into the
parlour, and settled with a graceless thud on the sofa next to the girl.
 

"You ever entertain men?"
 

Lola's tone was easy, as if she were commenting on the
weather or a new cake recipe. She plopped her hands onto massive thighs and sat
back heavily, jarring tendrils of bright hair loose and sending them burning
down the sides of her puffy cheeks.
 

The girl's smooth expression drew into a frown, and she studied the smoke-soiled paintings sprawled across the uneven
ceiling.
 

Lola sat patiently, drumming her fingers, recalling
how she'd commissioned the work from a Denver saloon painter. The man had
barely finished the job when he'd succumbed to a disease born of debauchery.
 

     *
         
*
           
*
 

Sarah Anders cringed. The graceless woman had pitched
her bulk against the sofa like a bale of hay being tossed onto an overloaded
wagon.
 

She wondered how long she'd need to stay at this
place.
 

Her jade eyes surveyed the grandeur of the room. Sarah's experience was deep but narrow. She'd never
met a body like Miss Lola in her life. The woman was bold, like the ladies who
sat in the front row at church on Sundays -- even when their families were
behind on the pew rent.
 

But bold didn't begin to describe the bright painted
lips and fire-red hair, and Miss Lola's scarlet dress was cut overly tight and
stretched far too brazenly across her ample bosom.
 

Sarah nervously fingered her own faded lindsey-blue
skirt, threadbare and covered with trail dust. Miss Lola's personal tastes ran
to overbearing and eccentric, but who was she to judge? This woman was her only
friend, or at least a sympathetic soul -- she'd responded kindly when Sarah had
desperately knocked at her door.
 

Besides, Sheriff
Aiken had guaranteed Sarah there'd be work in Lola's kitchen. He'd said it was
a good job, a good wage, with meals, and a bed.
 

But what the woman
now proposed was entirely different.

Entertain men?
Miss Lola's query echoed off the high
plaster ceiling. Stunned the conversation had taken this direction, Sarah's
slate went blank. It was another grave disappointment. She stared mindlessly
over Lola's shoulder at a gilt-framed painting: a Cupid loading an arrow into
his tiny bow.

Suddenly the fancy parlor turned cheap
arcade; it smelled too much of penny perfume, sour whiskey and stale tobacco
smoke. The stench cast a pall, from the heavy draperies and flowered wool
carpet to the mahogany leather upholstery.

Dueling urges
battled within Sarah. She wanted to flee, but there was no place to go. She had
nothing. They were hungry and penniless. She glanced at her sister seated
across the room.

"Entertain
men? Well, yes . . . if you mean singing and playing music," Sarah
challenged, thrusting her chin upward. Her green eyes burned, roamed across
Lola's shoulders and up to the round smiling face.
 

Memories knifed through
Sarah, thoughts of the many joyful evenings she spent singing with her papa.
She bit down on her lower lip. She thought hard about her father's last words.
Keep
your head up. Always. My spirit will protect you.
 

She'd
been a practical, orderly daughter, and her skill at managing the homestead,
especially after Mama died birthing Emily, was a source of pride to her father.
But not a year had passed after Mama was gone, and he'd also passed on. Sarah
missed him deeply.
 

Orphaned, Sarah and Emily were promptly packed up and
dispatched to live with Uncle Orv, a widower.
 

Forcing her thoughts back to the present, Sarah twisted
and scanned the room to look at ten-year-old Emily, who knelt on a wobbly
straight-backed wooden chair, dangling over a checkerboard. Sweat-dampened
blond hair hung in limp curls around her small face.
 

"Emily, be careful! You'll tip!" Sarah felt
a familiar surge of maternal concern.
 

"Huh?" Emily turned, and the chair legs
shook precariously as she held up a speckled white pawn.
 

"Look Sarah!
 
Fancy pieces! They're made of pretty stones!"
 

Sarah waved a hand frantically. "Yes, Emily, very
pretty . . . be careful! Don't drop them!
 

Emily's small hands caught the edge of the table, and
the back chair legs settled safely onto the floor. Sarah slapped one hand to
her brow and groaned.
 

Wrenching her neck back around, she resettled on the
sofa. Miss Lola
was still waiting. Sarah cleared her throat. Her voice emerged in a whisper.
 

"Well . . . I used to sing with my pa."
 

The madame leaned forward and arched one eyebrow, and
she wondered how much of the young woman was real toughness and how much was
bluff. The territory had a way of eliminating the weak, and it was certainly
less forgiving of women than men. Lola's mouth opened a crack but she paused.
Her chest rose slightly.
 

"Er, that's dandy experience,"
she finally blurted, as she poked nervously at a hairpin near the nape of her
neck. "Other girls here take a shine to singing. Honey, you'll fit right
in." She reached out and grabbed Sarah's hand.
"Darlin', you'll
earn enough here to tend to yourself and your sister. My, it looks like she
could use a new dress and shoes too."
 

       *
    
*
    
*
    
*
    
 

Miss Lola's kindly gray eyes turned to business steel,
and she threw herself into the task of making her new asset a part of the
family.
 

Meanwhile Sarah considered her present
situation. She was orphaned again and doing her best to care for her young
sister. Lola had treated them well so far. She'd surely find a way out of
this predicament.

We are still alive,
she told herself.

Sarah briskly confided the day's horrors
to Lola. After all, nobody's life and death turned out the way they expected .
. . not Mama's or Papas or Uncle Orv's.
And not mine.

Living on the wagon train had taught
Sarah important lessons, and the first was that endings were always lurking at
the edges, ready to rise up to grab the most coveted dreams. Wild death rode on a
moonless night, claiming an infant just four days old. It left a mother
shattered, her child hastily buried beneath a crude marker alongside the trail.
Another time it claimed a vivacious young boy who expired after a night of
labored wheezing.

And then came a still evening when Sarah lay
under the blazing blanket. In the days that followed her weakened body stumbled
through a thick fog, and dreams slipped away back in that deep Dakota-crossing
haze.

Since then, and especially today, it was
blessing enough to be alive, to cling to the thin hope of a better life for
Emily. It was Sarah's last duty, and when all was accounted for, duty rose
above all else. Thousands of men had done their duty during the war, and at
much greater personal sacrifice. Some said nearly a million died.

Sarah frowned and narrowed her eyes.
Starting over was something she knew how to do. She'd heard places existed in
these territories where a soul forgot the past, and other folks didn't ask about
it -- places where a soul would be accepted at face value. Uncle Orv had
mouthed those words on the trail, over and over, day after day. It had been his
mantra, and now Sarah wanted to believe it too.

"When do I
 
. . . begin?"
 
Her voice felt hollow, strange.

Lola bent her massive body forward and
closed the breach between them, as if she were about to share a secret. Her
two-bit scent hung heavy as a log wall between them.

"Honey, you can get started right
today." A warm glow crept up her face. Impulsively she laid a meaty hand
on Sarah's knee.