Rebel With A Cause. Carol Arens

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ the way his shoulders filled his flannel shirt. Evidently she hadn’t taken note of the way his eyes could melt a woman in her shoes. Certainly, the woman could never have felt the scrape of his beard stubble under her fingertips.

      It had been some time since Zane Coldridge was a sweet boy.

      Throaty giggles erupted at the top of the stairs. Like a swarm of multicolored butterflies, women fluttered down the steps. Bare arms reached, bosoms jiggled over corsets, red mouths puckered for kisses.

      Maybelle had been dead-on about the girls missing Zane.

      “Have you brought me a new girl, dear?” Maybelle called out over the brightly colored heads of the women surrounding Zane. She wrapped Missy in a soft, quick hug that Muff didn’t seem to mind. Then she took a step back, smiling all the while. “Turn around, dear. Let me get a good look at you.”

      Missy made a pretty pirouette with one hand out, palm up. Muff, wedged against her side, wiggled in apparent delight.

      “Very nice,” Maybelle crooned. “Take off that old coat, dearie, and let me see if you will appeal to our gentlemen.”

      The coat hadn’t slipped to her waist before Zane had extricated himself from the flock of soiled doves and yanked the lapels back over her bosom.

      “I’d like you to meet Missy Devlin.” He fastened the top button and tugged to make sure it held. “She’s not a professional lady.”

      The professional ladies made a colorful circle, gazing at her with interest.

      “Why, then, is she in her underwear?” Emily asked. Curly heads of red, black and blond nodded all about.

      “Yes, dear, what has happened to your clothing?” Maybelle asked, her voice soft with concern. “Zane?” This time her voice had a bite to it.

      “I started off yesterday with a lovely dress, white and red with pretty bows and brass buttons shaped like roses, but it was eaten.” A multivoiced gasp came from the circle. Six pairs of eyes stared at Zane with disapproval.

      “By a cow!” Zane rushed to clarify.

      “Ohhh!” The women sighed as one.

      Emily nodded her head in apparent understanding, as though gowns were a regular part of bovine diet in the West.

      “Missy is trying to get home to her family in Boston,” Zane said to Maybelle. “She lost everything that she had in the flood that took out Green Island.”

      Maybelle touched Missy’s elbow. “Oh, you poor lamb. I heard about that. What a mercy that Zane found you. He’s brought me many a stray over the years. Not many women, you understand, but puppies and kittens, even a sick old man once. Our Zane just has a knack for bringing home castoffs.”

      “Can you put Missy up for a while?” Zane asked.

      “She can have your old room.” To Missy, she said, “It’s lovely and quiet at the top of the house so nothing will disturb you.”

      If only she could stay for a while. Why, the stories she would be able to tell! But first she had to get her journal back and return poor Mr. Goodwin’s rental horse. Very likely, the stolen animal would be the only part of his business to have survived the flood.

      “Thank you for your kindness, Maybelle, but I can’t stay a moment longer. I have business to take care of.”

      “In that pretty shift?” A blonde with a scar on her chin asked. “I thought you wasn’t a whore?”

      “Janie, you know we don’t use that word here,” Maybelle admonished. She smoothed her hands on the front of her modest dress. “We are professional ladies, purveyors of pleasure to discriminating gentlemen.”

      “Janie didn’t begin her career at Maybelle’s. She came from outside.” Emily inclined her head toward the closed door. “She started at Pete’s Palace. Life out there is different.”

      “It’s mean,” said a woman who touched her shoulder, appearing to rub away some old pain.

      “And dirty,” added a brunette with shiny curls.

      Maybelle scratched Muff behind his mud-crusted ear. “You and your pup will stay with us until you can find your way home, but I have to warn you, Luminary isn’t the place for a lady like you.”

      “You are a prize, Maybelle.” Zane kissed her cheek. “I’ll be on my way.”

      “You chasing some outlaw?” Emily asked.

      “Hot on his heels, darlin’.”

      Missy’s heart gave a kick when he called the woman darlin’. It had been naive to think that he’d meant something personal when he’d called Missy that.

      Zane passed quick kisses all around. Except for Missy. He wished her luck then strode out the front door.

      “I sure do hope it’s not another year before we see that man.” Emily took Muff from Missy’s arms. “What a sweet little poochie.”

      “Let me have that dirty old coat, dearie.” Maybelle slid it off her, held the coat at arm’s length and wrinkled her nose. “Who knows when this was last laundered?”

      “I can’t stay, really.” Missy sprinted toward the door.

      Maybe if she offered Zane a huge sum of money he would take her along.

      She yanked open the door then remembered that she didn’t have a huge amount of money. She had no money. The only way she had to get money was to wire Edwin and beg him for some.

      Missy stepped onto the boardwalk. Bright sunlight nearly blinded her. She shaded her eyes with her hand and watched Zane trot away in a haze of dust.

      “Hey, chuckie!”

      Missy turned to see a man, greasy hair hanging past his shoulders and black spittle oozing from the corner of his mouth, crossing the street. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a small coin. “This’ll be all your’n if you let me taste your—”

      Whatever revolting thing the man had intended to say was cut short by a gunshot. The coin vanished from between his fingers. He let out a yelp of profanity and chewing tobacco.

      Missy spun toward the sound of the shot. Zane sat tall in his saddle with a gun sitting easy as a heartbeat in his steady hand. Wisps of smoke twirled out of the gun barrel. The fury in his eyes made her shiver. It made the greasy man run for cover.

      Half a dozen hands from behind grabbed her shift and yanked her back through Maybelle’s front door.

      An hour before sundown, Zane settled Ace into the Dereton livery. He gave the liveryman an additional coin to make sure the horse had an extra bag of oats and the best stall. At the stable door he paused and glanced back. The extras he had purchased were bare payment for a couple of hard days. He whistled softly in good-bye and got a whickered reply.

      Reassured that Ace was well-tended, Zane walked two blocks to the marshal’s office.

      The marshal, Joseph СКАЧАТЬ