Page 11 of The Saloon Girl's Only Shot

Jane glanced up, brows raised with hope.

Temperance shook her head.

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too. But I wanted to come thank you. I took your advice and got on at the Dudley.”

“That’s good news! Now you can save up to bring your father here.”

It would take months at the rate Mr. Dudley had agreed to pay, but Temperance nodded, then admitted, “While I was at the Express office, I bumped into one of the men who is supposed to hire Papa.”

“Mr. Gardner?” Jane’s voice sharpened with interest.

“His partner. Owen Stames. But I had already met him last night in the saloon.” She covered her eyes with one hand. “I didn’t realize who he was and flirted with him. Now he thinks I’m some sort of bunko artist lying about Papa.”

“What? No.” Jane moved her mending and took the other chair. “I can vouch for you. I was there. I tended your father’s injuries.”

“That’s true.” Temperance brightened, but the moment she thought about talking to him, trying to convince him she was an upstanding woman who had aspired to teach at a women’s college, her stomach filled with wiggling snakes.

He saw her as a woman of questionable morals, and she was. He thought he could charm her into doing what he wanted, and she knew what he wanted. Explicitly. Even as her mind warred against thinking about it, her body flushed with intrigue, wondering how it would feel to kiss him, to hold herself against him and run her hands everywhere.

She couldn’t give in to him. Couldn’t. Look what had happened the last time she’d let a man have his way?

“How do you—” Temperance stopped herself and reconsidered her words. “I understand that our situations are very different, and I don’t want to pry, but abandoning everything you knew was such a brave move. I had a falling out with my stepmother which precipitated my leaving Chicago to come here.” That was such a prevarication, it was almost a lie, but she wasn’t ready to tell Jane what a fool she’d been. “My hope is that the work I do with Papa will fix things with her and she’ll welcome me back.” Good luck, saloon girl. “I keep wondering how you’ve reconciled to leaving everything behind and making a life in a strange place?”

“I don’t have family to go back to,” Jane said simply.

“Oh, Jane, I’m so sorry.”

“That sounds sadder than it is,” she dismissed with a faint smile. “I lost Mama a year ago and that broke my heart, but my father passed when I was young. I didn’t really know him. He worked away. When I wrote to my aunt about Mama, she invited me to come live with her and my cousin in Pennsylvania, which I may yet do, depending how things go here.” Her gaze fixed on the middle distance as she considered some inner thought. “My brother went north. He wouldn’t have left if he realized Mama would pass so suddenly. I know that. I left with the intention of following him, but —” She rolled her lips inward, giving the impression Jane also liked to keep to herself in certain ways.

Temperance nodded acceptance of that. “Things change, don’t they?”

“They do. But I’ve always known that I would like to open my own dress shop,” Jane said with that lilt of good humor in her voice. “A town full of men isn’t the best place for that, so I maybe should’ve thought this through a little more. These men don’t even want a good shirt. They all wear the slop-shop ready-mades.”

“Maybe as the town grows, there will be more than farmers and miners here,” Temperance said, striving for silver linings. “What about marriage? My stepmother was adamant that that’s a woman’s purpose.” And I believed her.

“I’ve minded a lot of children,” Jane said with a considering purse of her lips. “That was always my job while Mama helped a woman giving birth. I would like a family of my own one day, but I’ve seen enough of the hardships that come with childbearing and rearing that I don’t take the decision lightly.”

“That’s why I’m not married yet,” Temperance said with a half-laugh, even though it wasn’t the most recent reason. “I was eighteen when Adelaide had the twins. She had been talking about how I ought to marry soon, but she already had my brother and sister. She couldn’t manage and Papa couldn’t afford a wedding for me. I stayed home and pitched in, helping with the children and Papa’s work. When he arranged for the older ones to start school, I asked him to pay for my classes at the seminary, so I could certify to teach at a women’s college. I didn’t want to be a wife and mother, not yet, but Adelaide thought I was being a burden on the family. Why take classes for a career I wouldn’t pursue, because, of course, I would marry sooner than later. She pestered me until I quit my classes and—” She winced as Dewey entered her mind yet again. She sent a helpless, hapless look to Jane. “Things changed.”

Jane nodded knowingly. “Things will change again. They always do.”

“Thanks, Jane. I needed to hear that.” Please let them change for the better this time.

Chapter 4

“Owen.” Cecil Dudley greeted him with a frown of suspicion. “We settled up last night.”

“I came for a drink,” Owen said, even as he searched out the feminine laugh that floated over the low male voices and the tinkling of the piano keys.

There she was, throwing back her head, exposing the single button open at her throat. Her hair was up but coming loose around her hairline. Her cheeks were flushed, and her hands were animated as she spoke to a man at a table who gazed up at her with adoration.

There was a stiffness in her demeanor, though. A stubbornness.

Owen smiled to himself, suspecting she had spotted him as he arrived. She knew he was here and was deliberately trying to appear merry while refusing to look his way.

Watching her gave Owen a rush of heat to the belly and lower, one stronger than any shot of alcohol. It was accompanied by a twinge of frustration, though. Why did someone so blatantly dishonest have to pique his interest this sharply?

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