Page 24

Seth wasn’t buying it. Thorn was involved in Ike’s disappearance; he’d bet the entire $1000 bounty on it. With miles of hard riding ahead, he had plenty of time to get the truth out of him.

As he led his staggering captive from the saloon, the young woman Thorn had accosted smiled at him with gratitude and mouthed a silent thank-you .

He nodded, reminded of another girl from a different time in an even more harrowing situation. If the redhead in Omaha was truly her, then the gnawing uncertainty about what had become of her would be over. If only he could be sure.

***

Two days with Thorn seemed like two months. He’d never been as relieved as when he reined in outside the Omaha jailhouse. Wrangling his struggling, resistant, foul-mouthed prisoner from his horse and through the door wasn’t easy. Once he’d sobered up, nothing was.

The front room was empty, the four cells vacant.

“Got something for ya, Sheriff,”Seth called.

The older manwho had deputized him less than a week ago walked in from a back room. He skidded to a halt, his jaw dropping in shock as his gaze went from him to Thorn and returned to him.

“Damn, kid. I never expected to see you again. At least not alive.”

He couldn’t count the times he’d heard a similar comment right before a sheriff, town council, or mayor handed overthereward moneytheyowed him.

If bank robbing wasn’t his thing, like his pa and Judd asserted, he sure seemed to have a knack for bounty hunting.

But the disrespect was annoying. Maybe he should grow a beard.

Seth offered him Thorn’s lead rope that connected his bound wrists to the shackles he’d created with more rope around his ankles. When he took it, Seth unpinned his deputy’s badge.

“I won’t need this anymore,”he said as he handed it over.

“Or, you could keep it and try your hand at the other fugitives I got wanted posters for. Let me get this one in a cell, andI’ll show you.”

When the iron bars clanged shut on Thorn and his stagecoach/bank robbing career, he asked the sheriff, “How are the judges in these parts? What kind of sentence do you think he’ll get?”

“That wanted poster was outdated, printed before the driver he shot during the robbery died. That elevates the crime to murder, a capital offense.”The sheriff clapped him on the back. “You did good, kid.”

He managed not to bristle and shake off the man’s hand. At what age, and after hauling in how many dangerous outlaws, would he stop being a kid?

“About my reward,”he promptedthe older man.

“I thought you said you’d do it for free for Thorn.”

“As I recall, I said could, and almost. But this kid isn’t a fool.”

The sheriff’s grin vanished upon hearing Seth’s brusque tone. “Right,”he said, clearing his throat and getting wise to the insult he kept hurling. “I didn’t expect for you to bring him in today—”

“You mean ever, don’t you?”

“Yeah,”he admitted. “But I’ll know better next time. Since this time is a surprise, I’ll have to arrange for a bank draft. You can collect it at First National across the street by noon tomorrow. Fortunately, the deposit he stole was headed for the Omaha Bank on the other end of town.”

“Much obliged, Sheriff. I’ll swing by afterward and see what other jobs I can help you with.”

On his way to the door, the sheriff called out, “Say, Walker. You didn’t find the deposit on him, did you?”

“Sorry, Sheriff. The reward was for the man, not the money. You’ll have to get that out of him. Hopefully, before they slip the noose around his neck.”

The sheriffcast a determined look at his sole prisoner. Seth followed his gaze, locking eyes with the soon-to-be-charged murderer through the bars of his cell. He read hatred in them and fear.

When he left the jailhouse, another job finished, he expected to feel satisfaction. His instinct warned this wasn’t the last he’d heard of Thorn. Pushing that disturbing thought aside, he crossed the street to the hotel.

Restless and impatient, Seth waited for the couple ahead of him to check in. The same clerk from the week before greeted him with a smile. “Back for more pie? It’s cherry tonight, but just as tasty.”

“Maybe,” Seth replied noncommittally. “Acquaintances of mine are staying here. Fenton and Lottie, a tall man and a striking redhead. Could I get their room number?”

“I remember Mr. Sneed and his lovely wife, Charlotte. But you missed them. They only stayed with us for a night.”

Wife! That was an unexpected twist. Maybe she wasn’t the girl from the fire after all. Still, he wanted to be sure. “Did they mention where they were heading?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the clerk said, his smile fading. “That’s not information we usually share about our guests.” He looked at Seth quizzically. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“I need a room for tonight,” Seth replied. He had no choice but to stay in Omaha to claim his reward at the bank tomorrow.

The clerk’s smile returned as he laid the registration book on the counter for Seth to sign in.

Minutes later, as he made his way down the hall to the restaurant, the scent of roasting meat and coffee filled the air.

But his thoughts weren’t on filling his belly like the last time he’d made this walk.

Images of dark-haired Jade and redheaded Charlotte swirled in his head, fueling the question nagging at him—was it the same woman, or two different ones?

***

“Next stop, Laramie!”the conductor called ashe entered thepassenger car.

They were the sweetest words Charlotte had heard in a very long time.

She would have jumped from her seat with a joyous cheer if it wouldn’t have drawn undue attention.

With stopovers in Kansas City and Cheyenne and an overnight stay in Omaha to catch a connection west, they’d spent thirty hours over four days in what Fenton called a stinkin’ rail car.

But finally—after eighteen stops, one of which was to get a cow off the track—they had arrived.

She couldn’t imagine making the same trip, nearly 1000 miles, by wagon train, which was how she and Carson had planned it.

As she gazed out the window atthemountains inthedistance, the biggest she’d ever seen, she reflected on that long-ago rail journey plagued with fear and death.

She dashed away a tear, as the horror of that awful day came rushing back.

This uneventful trip seemed like a springtime stroll through the park in comparison, and she shouldn’t complain.

Fenton wasn’t much of a traveling companion, grumbling or snoring practically the entire way.

But he took care of the bags, bought the tickets, arranged for their hotel—the inn they stayed at for their one overnight in Omaha, waiting for a connection west, had been lovely—and he had a knack for finding his way around a strange city and always got them to the depot on time.

As the train slowed, Charlotte peered out the window, hoping to get a glimpse of the town, but all she saw were rail-yard buildings and the depot coming into view. She nudged the sleeping man beside her. “Fen.”

When he went right on snoring, she shook his shoulder. “Fen, wake up!”

“What is it? Can’t a man sleep?”

Slack-jawed and rendered speechless, she stared at him a moment before exclaiming, “You have snored loud enough to wake the dead for 950 miles.”

“Laramie, folks,”the conductor repeated as he moved down the center aisle. “For those traveling on, we have an hour stopover. If you leave the train, be sure to be back on time. With a strict schedule to keep, the First Transcontinental Railroad waits for no one.”

Fen sat up and began straightening his clothes. “About damn time.”

“I need to talk to you about this.”

He glanced at the newspaper in her hand. “What of it?”

“I’m not sure Laramie is where we want to settle.”

“You say this now when we’re pulling into the station?”

“Did I mention you’ve been asleep the entire trip?”

“Don’t get lippy with me, woman.”

“Fen. Listen,”she said in a softer tone. “The railroad only came to Laramie a short time ago. A few lucky residents live in shacks. The rest are in tents. In fact, that’s what they call it—a tent city.”

“It’s gonna be fine.”

“I’m not so sure after reading this newspaper article.

The only permanent structures aside from the depot are a small hotel, a sawmill, a barbershop because heaven knows a shave and a haircut are top priority, a two-cell jail, and the new general store.

There are several bathhouses, saloons, and brothels—all operating from tents.

And the crime sounds worse than St. Louis.

”She held up the paper to emphasize her next point.

“There are details of gunfights in the streets, which are reported to be a daily occurrence.”

“Let me see that.”He snatched the paper from her hand and looked at the front page. “For fuck’s sake, Charlotte. This is from last year.”

She snatched it back and looked at the date—right month, wrong year.

“Oh,”she replied, slightly embarrassed she hadn’t noticed but also annoyed. “It was on a table at the last depot we stopped at. Silly me for assuming it was current.”That it was old news didn’t allay her fears. “Do you think they have actual buildings now?”

“They had better.”

“Or what?”she asked, unimpressed by his vague threat. “The man who lost it to you is long gone. I can’t believe we uprooted ourselves without seeing it first.”

“I have the deed with a description of a building that specifies walls, a roof, and floors made of wood. If it’s otherwise, someone’s sure as hell gonna pay—in blood. Now, enough with the nagging. I’m seriously rethinking not leaving you in St. Louis.”

Charlotte glanced around, meeting the stunned gaze of a woman across the way. She gave her an embarrassed smile. “He’s joking. We’re tired from the trip. Aren’t you?”

When she turned around, she said to Fenton in a whisper, “Kindly keep your voice down while threatening murder and mayhem. And, when we get there, can you refrain from actually doing it? If you hang, where does that leave me except alone among what the newspaper called the dregs of society?”

“Your concern for my neck is underwhelming,”he muttered, not lowering his voice while finger-combing his hair. “Besides, you’ve been among the dregs before.”

She would have volunteered to do it for him because he had beautiful, thick, and shiny hair, and when it was overlong, like it was now, it curled up on the ends because of its natural wave.

But his reference to her time at the Pleasure Palace, combined with the account she just read,no matter howout of date, made her already nervous stomach twist into knots, and she didn’t offer.

“Relax,”he murmured as he took her hand in his. “The railroad changed everything in Laramie. They are now a freight hub for the region, and the land agent told me ranchers, farmers, and family types have settled here because of it.”

“Why did you speak to a land agent?”

“Because the government is practically giving away land, and I’m not one to pass up a good deal.”

“Yes,”she agreed. “But aren’t you required to improve and live on the land?”

“Details,”he said flippantly. “A few years from now, when Laramie is the boomtown I expect it will be, I’ll sell my acres to a rancher looking to expand for a considerable profit.”

Eyeing the dusty, unimpressive view out the window, she had her doubts. “That’s quite a gamble.”

“Look who you’re talking to,”he said with a disarming grin.

“Besides, at $18 to file, it was a steal. And the town is well on its way to making my prediction come true. The agent said the population has more than doubled since the time of that article you read. They’ve got a bank, dress shops, a tailor, a telegraph office, and he claimed construction on the second church finished a few months back. ”

“That’s something, I suppose,”she muttered.

“Why? Have you got plans to go to services?”

The suggestion wasn’t as outrageous as he made it sound.

She used to go every Sunday when her papa was alive.

Even though she knew Fen was teasing, she didn’t like him pointing out how much she had changed from that girl and shot him a withering look.

“If I ever darkened its doors, the lightning strike would send it up in flames, so I’d better pass.

It would be a shame if the congregation had to rebuild so soon. ”

His hoot of laughter turned several heads.

“That’s what I love about you, Lottie. You’re more than a split tail. You’ve got wit and are always good for a laugh. When you’re not nagging me, that is.”

She wrinkled her nose at the offensive term and his backhanded compliment.

He got the hint because his tone softened. “We’re on the cusp of something big. Trust me on this.”

Fen raised her hand to his lips just as the whistle blew announcing their arrival.

Her trust in him had limits. His claims of love were old news; she had heard his sweet talk and endearments countless times and dismissed them as just that—talk.

The trip revealed a different side of him others had warned about.

His moods were unpredictable; sometimes, he was downright cruel, and his cutting remarks could be incredibly hurtful.

Between Fen the charmer, and the volatile man with a mean streak, her preference for the former came as no surprise. His kindness and declarations of affection reminded her of all she had lost and would never have again. His surliness helped her guard her heart, as Elise had advised.

She could have easily stayed on and ridden clear through to the Pacific Ocean.

It had been possible for over a year, but when Fenton stood and pulled her up with him, she didn’t resist. This was her lot in life.

Maybe someday she would discover why it had taken such a sudden and dark turn.

If this was all she had, and Fen was the only one she could count on, she was determined to make the best of the hand she was dealt—even if it killed her.

When theystepped off thetrain and she got her first glimpse of her new hometown—and a good whiff when the wind suddenly shifted— she worried it very well might.