Page 9 of The Saloon Girl's Only Shot

Did his sudden resolve have anything to do with wanting to see that sassy Temperance Rose again? Maybe. He could have stared at her all day, with her eyes that were both dark and bright at the same time. Her hair was almost obsidian with an undertone of red. Her skin held a shimmer of gold. He had expected an accent when she first spoke. Spanish, maybe, given her coloring, but her words held the crispness of a northern upbringing, one that was rounded with formal education.

He had watched more than listened as she spoke, given her lips looked as though they’d been stained by raspberry juice, sweet and plump and inviting.

“Do you remember Virgil writing to someone about a railroad?” Owen asked.

Stoney stowed a sack of turnips before pausing to scratch into his beard. “Sí. He wrote because everyone was jabbering at one of the statehood meetings, saying we need one. Wasn’t that it? He was trying to shut them up. Isn’t that right?”

“Was there any mention of a daughter?”

“Not that I recall.” Stoney went back for a sack of rice.

After he’d left Temperance Rose Goodrich at the Express office, Owen had been thinking maybe he should have brought her to meet Stoney, so his partner could pass an opinion on her claim. That wouldn’t change how Virgil would view the situation, though. Owen knew his friend well enough to know Virgil would never pay for anything less than what he’d ordered. If he had hired her father, then he expected her father.

Was her father even real, though? Educated ladies with fathers who wrote feasibility studies—whatever the hell those were—did not work in saloons. Hell, even her name sounded made up. Temperance Rose Goodrich?

“Tell Virgil that a woman claiming to be that fellow’s daughter is here. She was asking for a stage ticket and an advance on whatever money Virgil promised to him.”

Stoney hooted.

“That’s what I said,” Owen said drily.

All the partners were cautious with their money, from the notoriously tightfisted Virgil to Emmett’s insistence on doing for himself before paying someone else. Ira counted every spec of gold dust, and Bing Sun lived without any sort of luxury. Stoney wouldn’t countenance anything but top shelf for bottom dollar, and Tom made his way with trades. If he couldn’t come out ahead, he didn’t deal at all.

Owen was the closest thing to a spendthrift, and even he knew the best way to always have money was to leave it in your pocket.

“Did we get the pickles? That’s it, then,” Stoney said as he closed the tailgate.

“No strongbox?” Owen glanced over the contents of the wagon then down the street toward Pollock’s Stoves and Metalwork.

“They said at least another week.”

Stoney had built a vault in the floor of the office at Quail’s Creek, lining it with bricks and covering it with an iron door. It had a couple of padlocks and three or four men sleeping on top of it, but it was awkward to access and, by midsummer, had been too small to hold all their gold.

Which was a helluva nice problem to have.

Since they hoped to have even more next season, Virgil had ordered a cast iron strongbox, anticipating they would have time to dig a hole under the floorboards through winter.

“I’ll check for it next week,” Owen promised. “Did you get lemon drops for the kids?”

“Yes.” Stoney’s tone of annoyance was around the fact they had all turned into goose down when it came to Virgil’s litter of troublemakers.

“Take this back to Ira.” Owen reached for the leather wallet he had secured in his jacket’s inner pocket.

Stoney waved his hand impatiently and looked around as if the entirety of Pike’s Peak didn’t know that the partners in the Venturous Mining Company carried upwards of a thousand dollars in gold dust, coins, and promissory notes, at all times.

They paid their workers in gold, or, if they preferred, promissory notes that could be used at various businesses here in town. When any of the partners came to town, they made the rounds paying out the notes from saloons and other places. That’s what Owen had been doing last night and this morning while Stoney covered Auraria.

“I’m keeping fifty dollars. Tell Ira to mark it as a draw on my share.”

“You don’t need more than that for this saloon you’re buying?” Stoney mocked lightly as he took the wallet and tucked it inside his coat.

Owen had thought about that, but he didn’t want to walk around with that kind of money for days. “I’ll come get what I need once I’ve made a decision.”

He nodded goodbye and went to ensure he could keep his room above the corral.

Temperance had one friend here, Jane, and they were still somewhat strangers to each other.

Jane worked at the Bijou, which was a very fancy name for what was a very plain split-log cabin with a door and a window. The saloon didn’t open until late afternoon, so Temperance had yet to catch a glimpse inside, but Jane’s description made it sound rustic, but lively.

---