Chapter 20
“What do you mean he resumed the debt?” Owen asked Madame Beauville, trying to keep his temper from spiking.
“He paid me ten dollars to put it back in his name. Then he gave me twenty-five dollars against it.”
“Do whatever you want with his twenty-five dollars. I’m paying it out right now.” Owen showed her the carefully measured one-ounce packets of gold-dust that Virgil had brought from camp. He topped it up with a handful of gold coins.
Madame Beauville took a moment to add it all up, then said, “Plus ten dollars for transferring the debt.”
Owen clenched his teeth and dropped a pair of liberty heads onto the pile.
She wrote out a receipt, and he stomped straight back to the saloon.
Virgil was at one of the tables in the parlor. He had helped himself to a drink and was making notes in a book.
“Where’s Temperance?” Owen wanted to reassure her it was done. He knew she’d been worrying about whether he could look after her and he could.
“She went to visit Jane.”
“Read this for me.” Owen stuck the receipt under Virgil’s nose.
He read aloud every word including, “Your debt incurred by special arrangement with Elmer Greenly has been discharged in full.”
“Good. I’ll put it in the strongbox downstairs. That son of a bitch was trying to buy back my debt, so he could take hold of this place.”
“Is that why you didn’t deal with him through the land registration office?”
“Hmm? Oh.” Owen finished pulling back the trapdoor into the cellar. “No, that’s a long story involving Elmer’s prick being where it shouldn’t.”
“Enough said.”
Owen took a bottle with him into the cellar and topped it up while he was down there.
“Are you still looking at my books?” he asked Virgil when he came back up. “I thought you said Temperance is doing everything right.” Actually, what Virgil had said was, She’s liable to have a marriage proposal from Ira once he sees how pretty her handwriting is.
Which was why Owen was thinking Ira could keep his bespectacled ass in camp.
“She is, but I’m even more impressed by her ability to get things done with minimal outlay on her part. This book is hers,” Virgil said with a tap of his pencil against the page. “I told her I’d pay her for a report, and she immediately set me to work writing it.”
“Really?” Owen couldn’t help smirking, proud of her for getting the better of someone as savvy as Virgil.
“Mmm. I’m listing mining companies and camps in the area. What’s that outfit north of us? Pinewood? Pine Valley. That’s it.” He scribbled in the book.
“You’re really going to pay her?” Owen was pleased for her, but a sensation of threat arose in him too. He understood she missed her family, but surely she would settle in here once she knew the saloon was paid for free and clear.”
“We came to an agreement whereby I pay for her ledger book,” Virgil nodded at it, “and provide a postage allowance so she can write away for reference information. I’ll come back in a month or so. If her work is satisfactory, I’ll pay to print the booklet and finance her passage to Chicago. She gets one hundred copies to take with her to sell once she’s there. She’s smart. I’m no longer worried about her robbing you and more worried she’ll leave you in the lurch when she goes back to Chicago.”
“She’s not going back to Chicago.” Owen spoke reflexively, as if he had any say in the matter. It was wrong, he knew it was, but he wasn’t in the habit of being anything but truthful to Virgil.
“I’m sensing this is a no-win situation.” Virgil set down his pencil. “If I hadn’t hired her, you would have been insulted on her behalf?”
“I’m just concerned she’ll be too busy working for you that she won’t be working for me.”
“Is that what you’re concerned about?” Virgil snorted.
“I don’t see why you would come all this way worried I’m throwing my money away then get in the way of my making any.”
“You’re the only person allowed to make money? She’s not?”
“Oh, you did bring Marigold,” Owen said facetiously.
Virgil tugged his own ear, starting to wear a smirk of his own. “You could just admit you’re growing sweet on her.”
“Growing sweet on someone gets in the way of making money, so, no, I will not be doing that.”
“The admitting? Or the growing?”
“Both,” Owen insisted.
“Not all riches come from having money.”
“Christ, Virgil.” Owen looked to the rafters. “You’re happy with Marigold, and I’m happy for you, but you’re worse than a preacher. Lay off trying to marry me up.”
“Fine.” Virgil surrendered with open hands. “But you always said you didn’t want a wife, because you weren’t sure you could look after one. You can, so, what’s left to be afraid of? Having someone cook for you? Having a warm body in bed next to you? I guess you already have that, don’t you?”
Owen started to say, You know what I’m afraid of. Virgil was one of the few people besides Temperance who knew about Linus. But the note of challenge in Virgil’s tone pinched his conscience in a different way.
Virgil was accusing him of taking advantage of her, but that wasn’t what was between them. It was something generous and equal and pure. Wasn’t it?
Or was he telling himself that to justify sleeping with her without offering a wedding ring?
“If she wants to go back to Chicago, she can go back.” He rubbed the middle of his chest as he said it, trying to erase the prickling itch that rose there. “I have to get ready to open up,” he muttered and went to change.
Dear Papa,Temperance wrote the morning after Virgil left.
I hope you have arrived home safely. I want to reassure you that I am also safe and well. After some delay, I have made an arrangement with Mr. Gardner whereby I will write a simplified report for him in exchange for his financing my secure transport to Chicago.
She paused to trace her lips with the end of her pencil as she tried to imagine making that long journey only to arrive at a place she wasn’t wanted.
Am I welcome? she wanted to write but was too afraid of the answer.
I wish to ask you a favor on behalf of Mr. Gardner’s business partner, Mr. Owen Stames, who has lately opened a saloon. Do you still have connections in Peoria? Mr. Stames would be grateful for an introduction to distilleries there. If you are able to secure an immediate and direct shipment of their best product to the Lucky Horseshoe Saloon in Denver, Mr. Stames has proposed to give you an agent’s fee of ten percent.
She paused again to consider whether to tell him she worked here.
I’m enclosing a letter to the children. As we are heading into winter, you may not hear from me again soon, but I miss you all terribly and cannot wait to see you again.
With love, your daughter,
Temperance
She did miss them, but she wasn’t as desolate as she’d been when she had first arrived. She had a suspicion that when she left, she would miss the friends she’d made here just as badly: Jane and Mavis and...
Her throat ached as she blew on the ink to dry it. She carefully folded the letter into an envelope and addressed it, then looked up to find Owen watching her. Could he read the yearnings in her eyes?
“I asked Papa to arrange a shipment of whiskey,” she told him, voice dry.
“Thank you,” he said absently.
“Was that not what you were waiting to hear?”
“No, I was able to buy something at the trading post. I’m wondering how you would feel about using it.”
“Oh? What is it?”
“One of the skins made of rubber.”
“I don’t understand. A skin for making a jacket or...?”
“No.” His mouth twitched. “For me to wear. In bed. So you won’t get pregnant.”
“Oh.” She swallowed, heart lurching.
“I’ve never used one of these rubber kind. If you’re intrigued...?”
He needed to ask? “I’m intrigued.” Her voice felt as though it disappeared into her chest. She had been wanting to feel him inside her forever. Desperately.
A slow smile spread across his face.
“Now?” she asked, growing nervous.
“If you like.” He waved an invitation toward the bed, then moved to the pantry and poured a little olive oil from the jar into a cup.
She watched him as she shyly unbuttoned her gown. Despite the intimacies they’d been sharing, this felt bigger. More profound. They had held back from this act, and it had allowed her to convince herself she was holding back her feelings at the same time. If she didn’t do this, she would be safe, emotionally.
This act felt dangerous. Not harmful, exactly, but profound. She knew she would be altered after this, and that knowledge should have given her pause, but everything they did outside the bonds of marriage was considered by many to be a sin. She had come this far with him. Was there any point in denying herself now?
“You wear too many clothes,” he complained, stripping naked without ceremony and swooping to pick her up and set her on the bed.
“I didn’t know it was a race.” She kept her arms around his neck as he leaned over her.
“It’s not. I’m impatient. This is something I’ve wanted...” He touched his mouth to hers. “And wanted.” Another brief kiss. He smoothed her hair away from her brow. “Are you sure it’s what you want?” He searched her eyes with a faintly troubled gaze.
“It is,” she said as though confessing to a terrible crime. “I’ve wanted it since the first time we kissed.”
“Ah, Rose.” He often called her that when they were in bed. Sometimes she wondered if he thought of her as two people. Temperance was the woman he relied on for support with his business. When she was here, allowing him to undress her and kiss her naked breasts, this carnal person who arched and ran her fingers into his hair, was Rose, the saloon girl.
At some point, however, she had quit worrying about what he thought of her because what he did to her was so divine. When he trailed his mouth over her, and his beard tickled the swell of her breast and her inner arm and the quiver of her abdomen as she caught her breath, she became one live nerve. And when he slicked his tongue where she felt it most, she could do nothing but moan in sweet delight. He’d had a lot of practice pleasuring her this way, and he brought all his skills to bear.
Just when she thought she would tip into the abyss, he kissed his way up her stomach again, then teased her breasts until she was panting and trembling.
“Owen.”
“Are you aching the way I am?” He folded her hand around him so she could feel the steely heft of him, the leap of his response as she squeezed.
“Yes.”
He rolled away and reached for the condom, taking a moment to work it on before he dabbed oil across it.
He settled over her and his thick, covered shaft sat against her wet, needy folds. He kissed her once, twice, still tasting of her, but she didn’t mind.
She roamed her hands over him. They were both shaking with excitement. As he reached between them to guide himself into place, she opened her legs further and tilted her pelvis.
The broad head of his sex pressed for entry.
She braced herself, knowing this part would hurt, but it didn’t. Even as she bit her fingernails into his hard muscles, he was sinking into her with a rattled groan of pleasure.
She closed her arms across his shoulders. Her legs drew up and wrapped around his waist, welcoming him in. Welcoming the thick intrusion. The stretch and sense of fullness.
They kissed again, and he rocked back and forth, ensuring he was seated as deeply as possible before he braced on an elbow and slowly began to pump his hips.
Exquisite sensations were drawn out of her, then flowed back in. She had known this would make her feel closer to him. She hadn’t known she would feel this. Everywhere they touched, she felt fused to him. Her bloodstream sizzled with joy, and each thrust washed her in such pleasure it was decadence.
She wanted to tell him how good it was, but the only sound she could make was a long moan of absolute bliss. She rocked her hips to capture each of his returns, and stars shot behind her eyelids with every delicious crash.
His breaths were ragged, his body flexing in an effort to hold back as he tenderly made love to her.
When they were coated in sweat and gasping for breath, he caught his arms behind her knees, hitching her hips into a new angle. A thrilling sensation detonated deep in her pelvis. For one soul-shaking breath, her body tightened. Contracted.
Intense pleasure erupted within her, sending her into a world where nothing existed but ecstasy and the distant awareness that he was here with her, shuddering and bucking, sliding in and out of her in uneven thrusts, crying out with triumph, melding his hips to hers for what felt like eternity.
Slowly his weight sank onto her. He was still shaking, still panting.
Her weak arms fell off his shoulders, but she turned her lips against his salty skin to kiss him.
The words ‘I love you,’ sat in her throat. Tears were in her eyes.
That had been too beautiful. Too perfect to give up, and too fragile to sustain.
Owen hated winter,but as November flurries began to stick and accumulate, he wasn’t as miserable as he’d been in the past. The saloon was surprisingly cozy, and, even when the fire went out, his bed stayed deliciously warm.
That meant he was cheerful even when the deep snow meant the shipment to the mercantile was well over a week late and put him two pints away from running out of whiskey.
“Are you sure Mick is telling you the truth?” Temperance asked him.
Owen was wondering the same thing. Then he ran into Fritz at the mercantile. The other saloonkeeper was haunting the place in search of casks he’d ordered, too. Owen wasn’t the only one running low.
They heard from Mick that a rider had arrived in town from one of the forts this morning. He reported that waggoneers were waiting for the ground to freeze before attempting the rest of the trip.
“This is why Dudley makes his own,” Fritz said with a look of even more pain than he usually wore. “Listen, are you going to advertise in this catalogue of Elmer’s?”
“What catalogue?”
“I don’t know. Something he mentioned the other day. He said he’ll print it up and send it to Springfield to advertise the town. That way we’ll get more people here. Not just miners, but homesteaders and tradesmen who’ll buy plots of land. He’s going to drum up interest in a railroad too.”
“Are you joking?” Owen was near speechless. Had Elmer ever had an original thought in his life?
“He’s working on it with his father and P.J. Hartigan,” Mick provided. “He asked me too.”
Swearing and shaking his head, Owen went to P.J.’s liquor and tobacco shop on the way home, managing to fenagle a bottle of whiskey from P.J.’s reserve along with more information. Owen told Temperance as soon as he arrived home.
“What?” she cried. “But that’s what I’m doing.”
“His sounds like it’s pure hornswoggle too. P.J. said Elmer said it doesn’t have to be accurate. People only need to get the idea that there’s enough here to convince them to come. Elmer reckons if he says a railroad is on its way, people will come buy up land regardless.”
“That’s lying.”
“I think he’s views it as a colorful sales pitch.”
“Well, it’s wrong. It’s fraud. It’s—” She dropped her gaze to the notes she was making, but he’d seen the sheen of angry tears gathering there. “Will Virgil still want mine?”
Owen grimaced. This was the worst part. He hated to be the bearer of bad news, but he wouldn’t lie to her.
“I couldn’t say how Virgil will react, but this feels a lot like gold rushing. First in makes the money. Elmer isn’t just sending it to Springfield. Woodrow has contacts in Chicago, New York, and Washington.”
“But...” She looked crestfallen, which bothered him, but he couldn’t find it in him to be as upset as she was. “This is how I plan to get myself back to Chicago and support myself. I was going to show Adelaide that I contribute. That I b-belong—” She clamped her lips tight, but they still quivered. Her eyes welled, and her chin crinkled.
“Come on. Don’t cry.” She’d break his heart. He took her pencil and laid it down, then drew her out of the chair into his arms. “Why do you want to go back there and prove anything to that old cow anyway?”
“Because that’s how I get to see my family, Owen!” She pulled away. “Because I don’t want to be stuck here as a saloon girl all my life.”
“Is working for me really that bad?” He dropped his arms to his side, insulted. He thought he was offering gainful employment and a comfortable home.
“You know it’s bad,” she said in ragged voice that hit like a slap.
“That is not what I’m paying you for. You know that. And I hope like hell that’s not why you’re doing it.” The floor seemed to have fallen away beneath his feet. She liked what they did together, didn’t she?
She snatched up her bonnet and cloak from the hook. “I’m going to see Jane.”
Temperance cried allthe way into Auraria, but holding Freddie and drinking coffee with Jane and Mavis soothed her a little.
“Do you really want to go back to Chicago?” Jane asked. “Where will you live there? How will you live? What kind of work will you do?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted glumly. She missed her brothers and sister, but she had been planning to live apart from them if she married Dewey anyway. The fact was, if Adelaide hadn’t had twins, she would have pressured Temperance to leave the house five years ago.
Temperance was a grown woman who’d been putting off marriage and making a home of her own. It was time she did exactly that.
“Are you and Mr. Stames not...um...” Mavis faltered, glancing at Jane in a way that made Temperance suspect they’d already surmised the exact nature of Temperance’s relationship with her employer.
Mavis had warmed up to both of them now that she was no longer hiding her secret pregnancy. They were all growing close, which allowed Temperance to confide her own secret yearnings.
“If Owen cared about me, really cared, then I wouldn’t feel as though leaving was my only choice, but what do I have here? You two, which I’m very grateful for, but I can’t teach. Everyone knows I’ve been a saloon girl. I could marry, I suppose. There are plenty of men here desperate enough for a wife to take me, but—” ” She didn’t want to marry for the sake of it. She didn’t want to sleep with any other man. She wanted Owen, but Owen didn’t want a wife.
She loved him. That was the pain point. She loved him and wanted him to love her back. But he didn’t.
“I would offer you the stage ticket Mr. Stames arranged for me, but I sold it,” Mavis said. “We’re using the funds to pay down some of Friedrich’s debts and putting some away for Freddie.”
“Of course! I wouldn’t expect anything different,” Temperance assured her. “That ticket was yours to do with as you wish.”
Mavis wore the silver band that Temperance and Jane had bought for her. Mr. Fritz was actually Friedrich Zimmerman, so Mavis was now Mrs. Zimmerman, but Temperance and Jane continued to call her husband Mr. Fritz. Mavis had moved into his home and seemed very content.
Mr. Fritz was more polite to Temperance these days now that he’d realized she and Jane had only been trying to help Mavis.
“You’re being very patient with me,” Temperance said to Mavis. “I didn’t mean to come in here and talk ill of Freddie’s father.”
“My husband is Freddie’s father,” Mavis corrected firmly.
“Of course.” Temperance hugged the boy in apology. “That other business is forgotten. And you are a very lucky little boy,” she told the baby who was waking and rooting for his mother’s breast. “I’m so happy things have worked out for you.” She handed back the baby.
“Things will work out for you too,” Mavis assured her.
Temperance wanted to believe that, but she only smiled weakly and finished her coffee.