“Hush, now.” Sarah smiled an apology. “Yes, I’ve decided to stay. At least for the time being.”
“I hope you’ll let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.” He smiled again. “Undoubtedly life here isn’t what you’re used to.”
The way he said it made it clear that it was a compliment. Mr. Carlson was obviously a man of the world, and of some means. “Thank you.” She handed the puppy to Lucius and was gratified when Carlson assisted her into the wagon. “It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Carlson.”
“The pleasure was mine, Miss Conway.”
“Goodbye, Liza. I hope you’ll come and visit soon.” Sarah settled the puppy on her lap. She considered it just her bad luck that she glanced across the street at that moment. Jake was there, one hand hooked in his pocket, leaning against a post, watching. With an icy nod, she acknowledged him, then stared straight ahead as Lucius clucked to the horses.
When the wagon pulled away, the men studied each other. There was no nod of acknowledgment. They simply watched, cool and cautious, across the dusty road.
Sarah felt positively triumphant. As she stored her supplies, the puppy circled her legs, apparently every bit as pleased as she with the arrangement. Her nights wouldn’t be nearly so lonely now, with the dog for company. She’d met people, was perhaps even on the way to making friends. Her cupboard was full, and Lucius had been kind enough to show her how to fire up the old cookstove.
Tonight, after supper, she was going to write to Lucilla and Mother Superior. She would read another page or two from her father’s journal before she curled up under the freshly aired blanket.
Jake Redman be damned, she thought as she bent to tickle the pup’s belly. She was making it.
With a glass of whiskey at his fingertips, Jake watched Carlotta work the room. She sure was something. Her hair was the color of gold nuggets plucked from a riverbed, and her lips were as red as the velvet drapes that hung in her private room.
She was wearing red tonight, something tight that glittered as it covered her long, curvy body and clung to her smooth white breasts. Her shoulders were bare. Jake had always thought that a woman’s shoulders were enough to drive a man to distraction.
He thought of Sarah, standing ankle-deep in a stream with water glistening on her skin. He took another gulp of whiskey.
Carlotta’s girls were dressed to kill, as well. The men in the Silver Star were getting their money’s worth. The piano rang out, and the whiskey and the laughter poured.
The way he figured it, Carlotta ran one of the best houses in Arizona. Maybe one of the best west of the Mississippi. The whiskey wasn’t watered much, and the girls weren’t bad. A man could almost believe they enjoyed their work. As for Carlotta, Jake figured she enjoyed it just fine.
Money came first with her. He knew, because she’d once had enough to drink to tell him that she took a healthy cut of all her girls’ pay. If the man one of her girls was with decided to slip her a little extra, that was just fine with Carlotta. She took a cut of that, as well.
She had dreams of moving her business to San Francisco and buying a place with crystal chandeliers, gilt mirrors and red carpets. Carlotta favored red. But for now, like the rest of them, Carlotta was stuck in Lone Bluff.
Tipping back more whiskey, Jake watched her. She moved like a queen, her full red lips always smiling, her cool blue eyes always watching. She was making sure her girls were persuading the men to buy them plenty of drinks. What the bartender served the working girls was hardly more than colored water, but the men paid, and paid happily, before they moved along to one of the narrow rooms upstairs.
Hell of a business, Jake thought as he helped himself to one of the cigars Carlotta provided for her paying customers. She had them shipped all the way from Cuba, and they had a fine, rich taste. Jake had no doubt she added to the price of her whiskey and her girls to pay for them. Business was business.
One of the girls sidled over to light the cigar for him. He just shook his head at the invitation. She was warm and ripe and smelled like a bouquet of roses. For the life of him he couldn’t figure out why he wasn’t interested.
“You’re going to hurt the girls’ feelings.” Perfume trailing behind her, Carlotta joined Jake at the table. “Don’t you see anything you like?”
He tipped his chair back against the wall. “See plenty I like.”
She laughed and lifted a hand in a subtle signal. “You going to buy me a drink, Jake?” Before he could answer, one of the girls was bringing over a new bottle and a glass. No watered-down liquor for Carlotta. “Haven’t seen you around in a while.”
“Haven’t been around.”
Carlotta took a drink and let it sweep through her system. She’d take liquor over a man any day. “Going to stay around?”
“Might.”
“Heard there was a little trouble on the stage yesterday. It’s not like you to do good deeds, Jake.” She drank again and smiled at him. In a movement as smooth as the liquor she drank, she dropped a hand to his thigh. “That’s what I like about you.”
“Just happened to be there.”
“Also heard Matt Conway’s daughter’s in town.”
Smiling, she took the cigar from him and took a puff.
“You working for her?”
“Why?”
“Word around is that you drove her on out to his place.” She slowly blew out a stream of smoke from between her painted lips. “Can’t see you digging in rock for gold, Jake, when it’s easier just to take it.”
“Far as I remember, there was never enough gold in that rock to dig for.” He took the cigar back and clamped it between his teeth. “You know different?”
“I only know what I hear, and I don’t hear much about Conway.” She poured a second drink and downed it. She didn’t want to talk about Matt Conway’s mine or about what she knew. Something in the air tonight, she decided. Made her restless. Maybe she needed more than whiskey after all. “Glad you’re back, Jake. Things have been too quiet around here.”
Two men hankering after the same girl started to scuffle. Carlotta’s tall black servant tossed them both out. She just smiled and poured a third drink. “If you’re not interested in any of my girls, we could make other arrangements.” She lifted the small glass in a salute before she knocked it back. “For old times’ sake.”
Jake looked at her. Her eyes glittered against her white skin. Her lips were parted. Above the flaming red of her dress, her breasts rose and fell invitingly. He knew what she could do to a man, with a man, when the mood was on her. It baffled and infuriated him that she didn’t stir him in the least.
“Maybe some other time.” He rose and, after dropping a few coins on the table, strolled out.
Carlotta’s eyes hardened as she watched him. She only offered herself to a privileged few. And she didn’t like to be rejected.
With the puppy snoozing at her feet, Sarah closed her father’s journal. He’d written about an Indian attack on the wagon train and his own narrow escape.
In simple, often stark terms, he’d written of the slaughter, the terror and the waste. Yet even after that he’d gone on, because he’d wanted to make something of himself. For her.
Shivering a bit despite her shawl, she rose to replace the book beneath the stone. If she had read those words while still in Philadelphia, she would have thought them an exaggeration. She was coming to know better.
With a half sigh, she looked down at her hands. They were smooth and well tended. They were, she was afraid, woefully inadequate to the task of carving out a life here.
It was only the night that made her feel that way, Sarah told herself as she moved to check the bolt on the door. She’d done all she could that day, and it had been enough. She’d driven to town alone, stocked the cabin and replanted the vegetable garden. Her back ached enough to tell her she’d put in a full day. Tomorrow she’d start again.
The lonely howl of a coyote made her heart thud. Gathering the puppy to her breast, she climbed up for bed.
