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“Whoa!” he called as she snapped the reins.
She didn’t stop, but she did look back at him. He was quite the gentleman in his Sunday best. If she didn’t know better, she’d peg him for a prominent businessman or cattle baron. He wore a three-piece suit she hadn’t seen before, his ever-present gun belt and a hat. She noticed his leather boots were polished to a high sheen.
She also noticed that Silas was standing by, saddled and ready, munching new grass alongside the hitching post. She frowned, first at the horse, then at Chance. He smiled at her in return, much like the cat who ate the canary.
What’s he up to now? Whatever it was, she wasn’t going to wait around to find out. It was already half past eight, and services began promptly at nine according to Jim. She urged the horses faster, and the buckboard rumbled down the road toward town.
A quarter mile into the trip, the ranch house just out of sight, Dora jerked the reins as the left rear axle of the conveyance hit the ground with a thud. “Good Lord!” The buckboard had lost a wheel.
A moment later the horses reared.
Chance appeared out of nowhere on Silas, ready to offer assistance. He sprang from the paint gelding and quieted the spooked team. Silas shot her a bored look as Chance offered her his hand. “Let me help you down.” She was just about to take it, when he said, “Looks like you’ll have to let me escort you to church after all. We can ride double on Silas.”
Truth dawned as she met his gaze.
“I don’t think so.” Avoiding his proffered hand, she hopped to the ground and inspected both the axle and the wheel. She’d learned a thing or two about investigation from her mystery novels, and put her powers of observation to work.
As she’d suspected, neither the axle nor the wheel had given way from any natural cause. The axle pin holding the wheel in place had simply been removed. Removed by Chance Wellesley.
“You did this deliberately.”
He cast her a look of pure innocence. “You don’t think I’d intentionally try to make you late for church, do you?”
Oh, he was good, all right. Any troupe of players would be pleased to have him as their comic lead.
“I do.” She kept her anger in check. She wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction. “I am clueless, however, as to your motive.”
He unhitched the horses from the buckboard, pointed them toward home, and gave them each a wallop while letting out a “Yee-ha!” that would rival any cowpuncher’s. The horses took off. “They know their way back. Rowdy’ll come looking for the buckboard once he sees them.”
The man had no scruples. She was just about to dismiss him with a pithy insult and make her way into Last Call on foot, when her father’s surrey rumbled into sight on its way to town. Aboard were Delilah and her six protégées, as she liked to call them.
“It’s a long walk,” Chance said. “And that church service starts on time. Ride with me, Dora.”
She shot him a deadly look. Turning on her heel, she set off at a brisk march.
Delilah cackled behind her, and the girls dissolved into giggles as their surrey rumbled on, catching her up. Chance called after her. It should have given her great pleasure to ignore him, only she couldn’t forget their conversation yesterday morning.
It was as if he were an entirely different person when they’d stood together looking out across the wide valley at what remained of her father’s cattle. He’d spoken passionately about ranching, the land, what a man could make of himself if he so chose. The way he’d looked when he’d said it, the longing in his eyes was what she remembered most.
“Honey, it’s nearly nine.”
Dora was jarred from her thoughts as Delilah pulled the conveyance to a halt just ahead of her.
“Hop up here next to me, and we’ll get you to church, pronto.” She shooed one of the girls to the back, and patted the seat next to her.
“Oh, no, I—” She almost said couldn’t, but stopped herself. She didn’t want to appear rude. Her mother would roll in her grave if she knew Dora had even entertained the idea of riding into town with a woman like Delilah.
“Oh, come on. Sure you can. We won’t bite.” She patted the seat again. A couple of the girls encouraged her.
The notion was appealing on one level. She didn’t want to be late for services. If she was going to woo the townsfolk to her cause, she had to do everything right. That included being timely and courteous. Besides, John Gardner had said he’d wait for her in the vestibule. She owed it to the banker to be on time.
On the other hand, arriving early aboard a surrey with a bevy of soiled doves would not advance her cause. Nor would it recommend her to the townspeople as a suitable role model to teach their children. On the contrary.
“Thank you, Mrs….” What was the woman’s surname? She never did find out.
“It’s Delilah, honey. Nobody except lawyers and bill collectors call me anything else. Come on, now. Time’s wasting.”
Chance trotted up on Silas. The mere sight of him, and the unpleasant thought of him following her the rest of the way into town, was enough to sway her decision. Dora climbed up onto the surrey, and Delilah snapped the reins.
They were late for the service anyway, and in the end Dora was relieved. Delilah had refused to drop her off before they reached the church, so she could walk the last few blocks on her own, without the company of seven prostitutes and the gambler who rode behind them.
Mercifully, John Gardner was already in his seat when Dora entered the church. She joined him. Chance, Delilah and the girls sat in back. It astonished her that no one seemed to pay them any mind. They appeared to be as welcome as the rest of the congregation. In fact, following the service, the preacher walked right up to Chance and shook his hand. She wondered if he, like Mr. Grimmer, was another of Chance’s victims at the card table.
“I’d be happy to escort you home,” John said to her on the front steps of the church after the service.
Moments ago he’d introduced her to a half-dozen businessmen, some of them members of the town council. Before she could tell them of her plan to turn the Royal Flush into a school, they’d gushed on about how wonderful it was that she’d taken over her father’s business, and oh, what a fine business it was, drawing all kinds of people to Last Call, and wasn’t that good for the town’s economy.
“She has a ride,” Chance said, appearing at her side.
“With you?” John’s face was stone.
“No, with us!” Delilah waved her over. She and the girls were already seated in the surrey.
“You came with them?”
“Oh, no, I…” How was she to explain? “I mean yes, I did, but not by design.” What on earth would he think of her? It was bad enough that she owned the Royal Flush and was living there. There were still no vacancies in town.
“Her buckboard threw a wheel,” Chance said. “Let’s go, Miss Fitzpatrick.” He took her arm and pulled her down the steps.
“Wait a minute!”
She didn’t even get to wish John Gardner a proper goodbye. A few minutes earlier, before he’d introduced her around, the banker had asked her if she’d join him for luncheon in town on Wednesday. He’d said he wanted to speak with her about her father’s mortgage. She’d hadn’t had the opportunity to reply.
John was a nice man and wildly attractive. She was surprised he wasn’t already married. She was doubly surprised he showed an interest in her, an interest that seemed to go beyond a discussion of her father’s affairs, if she was reading his eyes and his mannerisms correctly.
“Wednesday, then,” she called out to him on impulse.
“I’ll pick you up. Noon all right?” His smile was like sunshine.
“Perfect.”
Chance looked positively irritated as he helped her onto the surrey. Delilah drove them out of sight before she had an opportunity to wave goodbye to John.
“I’d watch him, if I were you,” Delilah said, as she guided the surrey onto the bumpy road leading out to the ranch.
“Mr. Wellesley?” she said, glancing back at Chance, who followed them on Silas.
“Him, too. But I meant the other one. That banker.”
“Why do you say that? Mr. Gardner seems like a perfectly amiable gentleman.”
Delilah arched a brow at her. “He may be, on first blush and all, but there’s somethin’ about the man I never liked. Can’t exactly put my finger on what it is, but I’d be careful if I was you.”
It was clear that, despite what the other townspeople thought of Delilah and her girls, John Gardner did not approve of them. That, in and of itself, might be the sole motive behind Delilah’s dislike of the man. Dora brushed it off.
“You’d best listen to her,” one of the girls whispered in her ear.
Dora slid around on her seat. “Daisy, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And I’m Iris,” the girl sitting next to her said. “And this here’s Lily—” she nodded at the girl to her left, then pointed to the back “—and Columbine and Rose.” The two girls waved to her from the back seat.
“You’re all named after flowers. What an odd coincidence.”
They laughed, all except Lily, who was the most striking. Dora guessed her to be about her own age, twenty-five or so. A tumble of dark hair framed her delicate features and set off sharp green eyes that watched Dora like a hawk.
“No coincidence,” Delilah said. “I rename each of my girls when they first come to work for me. It’s better that way. Gives ’em a fresh start.”
Fresh start was not exactly the term Dora would have used to describe a woman’s entrance into employment at the Royal Flush. All the same, she didn’t wish to appear rude, nor did she wish to probe.
“Lily makes all the gentlemen call her by her proper name,” Iris said.
Delilah rolled her eyes.
“Which is?” Dora looked to Lily herself to answer.
“Mary Lou Sugrah,” Iris blurted.
Lily shot her a look. “Miss Sugrah to you.”
The girls dissolved into giggles.
Dora twisted around farther in her seat and smiled at the last girl, jammed into the back seat beside Rose and Columbine. She looked younger than the others, and had big doe eyes that lent her a fragile, almost childlike quality. “And what’s your name?”
The girl smiled back. “I’m Susan, ma’am. Pleased to meet you.”
“Susan? That’s not a flower name.”
Delilah snorted, and the rest of them, all except Lily, laughed.
Rose was the first to recover. “Miss Delilah named her Lazy Susan, seeing as how she’s so slow and all.”
“Slow?” Dora frowned. “At what?”
They burst into another round of laughter. Delilah tried to hush them, but eventually gave up.
Susan leaned forward so Dora could hear her. “I can only manage two or three customers a night. The other girls can double that. Why, Lily here can sometimes triple it, can’t you, Lily?”
Dora’s face grew hot.
“My record’s fourteen, but that was in the winter. The nights are longer.” Lily tipped her nose in the air and looked out across the range toward the snow-capped peaks, making it clear she was bored with the conversation.
“Oh,” Dora said, trying to hide her shock. “I…uh, see.”
“You girls hush now!” Delilah said. “Don’t be bothering Miss Dora with your stories.”
Dora turned back in her seat, grateful for the older woman’s intervention.
“Don’t pay ’em no mind. They’re ninnies, most of ’em. Wouldn’t know how to get by in this world if it weren’t for me and your pa taking ’em in.”
Dora considered their predicament now that the Royal Flush was closed. “Surely they can get work elsewhere. There are two other saloons right here in town.”
“Don’t you worry about it. They’ll find a place. Won’t be as nice as the Flush, and they won’t be treated half as good as me and your pa treated ’em. Like daughters, is what Bill used to say.”
“Did he?” The thought of it made her feel funny inside.
“Oh, not like you, of course. Bill was wild about you. Talked about you all the time.”
“He did?”
“Oh, sure. He’d sneak off to the Springs just to get a look at you.”
“He told you that?”
“Didn’t have to. He was a fine man, your pa.” Delilah abruptly lowered her gaze, then roused the horses to pick up the pace.
Dora studied her profile as she drove the surrey toward home. Under all that face paint she was a handsome woman, and had likely been beautiful when she was young. Something about her seemed strangely familiar, yet Dora was certain she’d never seen Delilah before arriving at the Royal Flush.
“Those men that Mr. Gardner introduced me to at church…”
“Hmm?”
“They made it seem as if the whole town depends on the business my father’s saloon brings to Last Call.”
Delilah nodded. “It does. Boardinghouses, the hotel, the mercantile and livery, the laundry, the barber shop, the stage… Heck, even the other two saloons fare better because of us. Last Call’s nothing without the Flush. It was nothing before your pa arrived, and it’ll be nothing again.”
“You really think so?”
“I know so, honey. I was here before your pa quit ranching. Last Call was barely a stage stop and a few shacks.”
“Hmm.” All the same, the town would still need a school, although most of the children lived on outlying ranches. She’d confirmed that fact at church today. “Where will you go now?”
Delilah sighed. “Don’t know, exactly. But it’s time for me to move on, what with…” She paused and sucked a breath. “With the Flush closing and all.”
Dora had the oddest feeling Delilah had meant to say something else, but had stopped herself.
She thought about John Gardner’s advice to her that first day, to close the saloon until a suitable buyer could be found. Would the bank not go under, as well, if the Royal Flush closed its doors and the town’s trade dried up?
