Pamela climbed onto the middle of the bed and curled her legs under her. “Think about it, Maggie. We could hold a double auction. Me getting rid of the stock of the store, and you taking the highest bid for a husband.”
“Crazy talk.”
“Wouldn’t you like to see McCready bidding for you? Why, I’ll bet you he would top every single bid that was made. You can’t be blind and not see how the man looks at you, Maggie.”
“Slaves got auctioned. We fought a war to stop that. An’ here you sit, Missy Prim and Proper, an’ tell me to put meself up on the block.”
Pamela did not take offense at Maggie’s name-calling. She smiled and nodded. “That’s it. You put yourself up on the block. Can you think of a better way to get rid of two husbands you don’t want? Think about it, Maggie. Think hard. Do you really want to be Mike Grant’s ranch wife? He’s good-looking, I’ll admit, but not nearly as handsome as Lars. He would likely pet you and keep you tied to a kitchen and babies.
“And that’s another little thing we’ve forgotten about. You could be carrying McCready’s baby right now. Wouldn’t be fair to bring another man’s leavings to a marriage.”
“Still think you’re crazy.”
“Do you? You want McCready—”
“He’s a liar!”
“Stand still and look at me.” Pamela squinted to make sure that Maggie did stand still. Three drinks were one too many for her, she decided, swaying slightly. She inched her way back until the pillows cushioned her. “That’s better. Now, where was I?”
“You were tellin’ me that I was wantin’ McCready, an’ I’m sayin’ you’re wrong.”
“Do you get butterflies in your stomach when you see him?”
“Butterflies? Oh, you mean the wee ones.”
“Wee ones? Well, you have them, and I’ll keep my butterflies. But that proves what I’m saying. You don’t have them around with other men, do you?”
Maggie sat on the edge of the bed and looked up in dismay. “No,” she whispered. “Not even a tiny flutter.”
Pamela clapped her hands with glee, her gaze suddenly wise. “Do you think about kissing anyone the way you do McCready?”
“I ain’t ever kissed another man.”
“And I know you wouldn’t want to. I feel the same way about Lars, and I’ve done my share of kissing. It’s the only way, Maggie. McCready wants the mines, right?”
“Yeah,” she answered absently, her mind racing with this crazy idea of Pamela’s.
“He’ll do anything to have them?”
“Bet on it.”
“That’s it, then. You’ll put up yourself and the mines for auction. We’ll need signs, but I’ll take care of those.”
“Slow down, girl, you’re like a wild bunch of mustangs, tramplin’ everythin’. I need to think about this.”
“You do that, Maggie,” Pamela said in a smug little voice. “We’ll both sleep on it and see what the morning brings.”
“In the last hour that’s the best suggestion you’ve had.” Maggie blew out the lamp and crawled into the other side of the bed. “It’s mighty soft,” she whispered, trying to hang on to the edge so as not to roll into the middle, where Pamela lay.
“Get used to it, Maggie. You’ll have to stay with me. We have what’s left of our reputations to protect.” She found Maggie’s hand and gently squeezed it. “I’m glad we’re friends. I couldn’t get through this without you.”
And in the dark Maggie squeezed Pamela’s hand back, unable to answer her for the tears burning in her eyes and throat.
Pamela would likely never know how much Maggie needed her as well. She wasn’t open like Pamela with her hugs and touches and her words. But she was learning that she could be strong and still share with someone else without losing anything.
She had promised Pamela she would think about her crazy idea of an auction, and she tried, but eyes closed or open, all Maggie could see was McCready’s face with those dark blue eyes and that cocky know-it-all grin. Her sleep was restless. Her dreams filled with his taunting and daring her to reach out and take what she wanted.
Pamela asked if she loved him. Maggie wasn’t sure what love was. But she knew she would rather be fighting with McCready than accepting any other man’s kindness.
Dawn stole into the room, just as the answers she needed stole into Maggie’s heart and mind. She slept peacefully then. Able to wait to tell Pamela what she had decided.
Pamela and Maggie worked frantically all morning and argued every step of the way. Having set out a Closed sign and locked the door of the mercantile, Pamela ignored the few men that stopped by, but Maggie had to restrain her when Lars called out to her.
“We agreed,” she reminded Pamela. “No one sees us till we’re finished.”
“You’re right, but I didn’t think it would be this hard to do.”
“Never mind. You finish makin’ the list of stores, an’ I’ll keep countin’. You’ll have enough money to give to your father an’ plenty left for—what was it you called it?”
“A dowry, Maggie. A woman should have money and things of her own to bring to a marriage. It gives her worth in her husband’s eyes. The more she brings, the more he values her.”
“That so?”
“Would I lie to you? That is exactly the way it’s done back East, and I would imagine here in the territory, too. There aren’t many women who get to pick their own husbands. Why, it’s just like what Pete did to you. He made arrangements with Lars and Mike to marry you instead of paying back what they owed him. So, you see, Maggie, he already paid them your dowry.”
Maggie turned from the stack of shirts she was counting. “Pamela, you figure that me havin’ a bigger dowry might get McCready to do some biddin’?”
“Well, it couldn’t hurt,” she answered with a shrug. “But you don’t have anything but the cabin.”
“You’ll wait a few days till I get back to put up the signs?”
“Maggie! Maggie, where are you going?”
“Why, I’m off to get meself a dowry.”
Pamela ran after her. “You can’t leave. What’ll I say if anyone comes looking for you? Maggie, please.” But by the time she reached the back door, Maggie had called her dog to her side, for Pamela refused to allow Satin inside. “Maggie, don’t go,” she whispered, leaning against the edge of the door. But Maggie was already working her way up behind the mercantile and was soon lost to sight.
“Where is she going to get a dowry?” Pamela didn’t know.
By nightfall Pamela had run out of excuses why Maggie couldn’t come to the door. To Mike Grant’s two visits, she explained first that Maggie was still sleeping, then taking a bath. They worked as well for the two times McCready came calling. When Lars arrived for his one try, she refused to open the door at all, ordering him to go away, that Maggie didn’t want to see him and she didn’t want to talk to him.
But McCready didn’t give up. He came back a third and then a fourth time. He didn’t believe that Maggie was too distressed to see him. He certainly didn’t believe that she was taking another bath.
Pamela didn’t know what to do when he said he’d wait. And then asked about Satin.
“Why isn’t she here by the door, Pamela? That dog gets within ten feet of me and starts growling. She can’t be taking a bath, too.”
Twisting the curtain that covered the upper half of the door, although there was no window, Pamela turned to search the small kitchen behind her, hoping for new inspiration.
“Pamela?”
McCready made warning and impatience roll through her name. She turned to look at him through the few inches of the open door. The light barely revealed his features, but what she did see set her stomach to fluttering. His bruises only added to her sense of unease. There was no charming smile, just a thin, grim line shaping his mouth.
Pamela forced herself to smile at him. “Ah, the dog got into the pickled beef barrel and ate so much she made herself sick, and now she’s sleeping.”
McCready lifted his hand and, using one finger, tapped her nose. “You’re lying. Now, let me in to see Maggie.”
“She’s not here.”
“My patience is growing thin, Pamela. I need to talk to Maggie. I won’t go away until I do.”
She knew he meant it. “Fine. Threaten me, McCready. Do your worst.” Pamela opened the door and stepped back. “Go on. Come on in and see for yourself that she’s gone.”
He wasn’t wearing a gun, but Pamela felt a chill when she saw him dressed in black, filling up her kitchen with his male presence. Maggie, she thought, was welcome to him. She dogged his every step, standing quietly while he knelt beside her bed and peered beneath it, silently laughing to herself when he grew desperate enough to begin lifting the lids of the barrels in the store, hoping to find Maggie in one of them.
When they returned to the kitchen, her smile was smug, and McCready’s mouth had grown stern. His eyes, Pamela didn’t look at. “Are you now satisfied that I was not lying?”
“I’m satisfied that Maggie isn’t here. But you know where she is, don’t you, Pamela?”
She thought for a few minutes about putting him off. But she was worried about Maggie. And she really didn’t know where Maggie had gone, only what she had gone for. If McCready could make sense of it, he might find Maggie before more trouble found her.
“All I can tell you is that she went looking for a dowry.”
Her level gaze told him she was telling the truth, but it made no sense. “What dowry? Maggie doesn’t need one. She’s already got two husbands that—”
“One, McCready. Lars made it clear for all to see that he didn’t like Maggie.”
“Well, Lars didn’t know about the gold mine. Funny the way gold can make a man like almost anything or anyone.”
Pamela hid her hurt. Men knew things about other men that women were never told, and sometimes never learned. But she could strike a blow for Maggie. “Is that why you want to find her? Is that all you care about, McCready—the gold?”
“What’s between Maggie and me is just that—private. And it’ll stay that way till Maggie decides differently.”
“I don’t think so, McCready. Along about nine or so months from now, everybody might know about you and Maggie.” Pamela turned her back on him, biting her lip to keep from crying.
Lars couldn’t want Maggie. He just couldn’t. What did McCready know, anyway? He’d made a mess with Maggie. No, she wouldn’t believe him until Lars told her so himself
.
But the mere thought that he might have told her the truth forced Pamela to sit down.
McCready hunkered at her side, raking his shoulder-length hair back before he lifted her chin with the tips of his fingers. “Let’s forget about Maggie for now. Why don’t you tell me what has you upset? You know no one blames you for what your father did. And we’ll make sure that you can keep the mercantile going, if that’s what you want, Pamela. Ira said he’d come help you as much as he can, and there are others, if you’re interested in selling, who might be able to buy the place and stock from you.”
“Maggie already offered.”
“But Maggie won’t be here.”
“Don’t be so sure, McCready. Maggie doesn’t want to be married to Mike Grant. She said as much. She meant it, too. And she doesn’t like Lars any more than he liked her. So Pete just wasted his money trying to marry her off. But you,” she said, turning in the chair to face him, “didn’t understand what I said before. I’ll make it plainer. A man has his pleasuring and knows it, and a woman, McCready, a woman has to wait to find out if she’s the one paying for it.”
“Maggie’s—no, she couldn’t be.”
Pamela wasn’t sure who he was trying to convince, but it wasn’t her, and he was unsteady as he stood up and towered over her. “Like all men, you never thought about that, did you? Well, Maggie and I don’t need the likes—”
“You? I never touched you, Pamela.”
“I didn’t say you did. But as I was saying, Maggie and I will work out our problems in good time. You’ll just have to learn some patience and wait. And now, McCready,” she stated coolly, “it is late and you’d best leave.”
McCready slipped the leash on his temper. He gently pushed her back into the chair. With one hand braced on the chair’s back and the other flat out on the table imprisoning her, he angled his face close to hers. “I’m not going anywhere till you tell me where Maggie is.”
For all that he looked dangerous, Pamela wasn’t afraid of him. But she had to make him understand that she wasn’t lying. “Do you really care about Maggie?”
“Would I have come over here looking for her all day if I didn’t?”
“That is not much of an answer, McCready.”
“It’s all the answer you’re getting. Now, tell me—” Clasping her hands together in her lap, Pamela met his penetrating gaze. “I don’t know. She said she was going to find a dowry. Do you know where she could do that? Because, if you do, that’s where Maggie is.”
“The mine,” he whispered, releasing Pamela and turning away.
Maggie missing. Maggie and baby. Maggie and gold. Maggie and her damn husbands
. With both of his hands he raked back his hair. He had forgotten about the possibility of Maggie being with child. His child. And now she had run off. He spun around.
“Supplies, Pamela? How many days’ worth did she take with her?”
“None. Not from here. And there wasn’t much up at her cabin.”
“Christ! That damn woman!”
“Now, now, McCready, she’ll be back. She has to come back and settle the problem of one too many husbands. And you don’t really want someone marrying Maggie and taking her away, do you?”
He glared at her. Pamela was taunting him. “Feeling feisty?”
“Wouldn’t you do just about anything to stop one of those men from having Maggie?”
“Anything?”
She jumped up and threw her arms around him. “Oh, I knew you’d agree to help us any way that you could, McCready. I told Maggie that you’d be on our side.” She ignored his gentle push to set himself free and hugged him tighter. “I can’t wait to tell Maggie.” She leaned into him, forcing him to step back.
McCready was a little less than gentle but not rough enough to hurt her as he pulled her arms away and backed himself to the doorway. Pamela’s smile and sparking eyes warned him that he had agreed to something that he was going to pay for and regret doing it. But he didn’t have the heart to steal the first smile he had seen from her. She had been there for Maggie when he couldn’t be, when Maggie wouldn’t let him near her. After all, he told himself, what could she possibly want from him?
And with Maggie on his mind, he let it go, wondering why Maggie managed to slip away every time he thought he had her where he wanted her.
“McCready, you’ll remember to tell Maggie when you find her that I’ll have everything ready.”
“Sure. I’ll tell her when I find her.”
If you find her
. Pamela smiled, then closed the door, leaning against it with a satisfied smile. It had taken her most of the day to figure out what sort of dowry Maggie was after. She started to laugh, and soon couldn’t stop.
McCready wouldn’t have a chance to run when Maggie was finished with him. But best of all, McCready still didn’t realize that he wanted to be caught.
It was late the next night when an exhausted and furious McCready returned to Cooney Camp without Maggie, without having seen a sign of Maggie.
Standing in front of the mercantile, Pamela heard him tell Dutch that he didn’t know where Maggie had gone.
With a sigh of regret Pamela wished that Maggie had trusted her and told her where she was going. She couldn’t really blame her. McCready’s lies along with Quincy’s and what her uncle had done to her had wounded Maggie mighty bad.
But when Pamela saw that Mike Grant and Lars had come out of the Rawhider to talk to McCready, she hurried back inside. She didn’t want any more questions about Maggie.
Even with the shorter trails that Maggie knew, it still took her almost three days to reach Santa Fe. The city sprawled from Mannitan Avenue to past Capitol Avenue. The marketplace off the plaza was empty of the farmers that sold their produce and others selling cloth, leather goods, and pottery.
Maggie didn’t waste time once she found the Camino Del Rosario. She headed for San Francisco Street, looking for St. Francis’s Cathedral. She knew it would be easier to get the information she wanted from the padre there, rather than make the rounds of the cantinas. Men of the cloth, her uncle always told her, knew more about the sins and doings of folks than they ever let on.
The stately-looking padre took her for a young man, since he called her “my son” when questioning why she wanted to find Thadius Cornwallis. Maggie pulled the brim of her floppy felt hat a little lower to hide her grimed face, then explained that she had to pay a debt of honor to him.
Finding out that Thadius had rooms in the Exchange Hotel right on San Francisco Street was a bit of luck. Maggie quickly thanked the padre and made her way around the back of the buildings until she found the hotel. She didn’t want anyone to see her if she could help it.
But she had rushed headlong into coming here without finding out what Thadius looked like. She fingered the small poke of gold in her pants pocket, wondering how much it would buy her. Thadius’s room, perhaps? But that meant letting someone know that she was looking for him.
Her shabby appearance would likely have her thrown out of the hotel if she attempted to go inside through the front. But she had to find a way.
The creak of a nearby door had her spinning around, searching for a hiding place. The rattle of pots and pans and the stale aroma of fried foods had Maggie’s mouth watering. But the sight of a young boy, no more than ten or so, made her reveal herself. Here was someone who might help her and for some gold dust forget that he ever saw her.
“You are hungry,
sí
?” the boy asked with a faint accent. “A little,” Maggie admitted, studying what she could see of the boy’s thin body, dark hair, and even darker eyes. “What I’m really needin’ is a bit of help.”
“I am Antonio. You are looking for a cheap place to stay?”
“Not exactly. I’m lookin’ for a man that lives in the hotel. Maybe you know him? Thadius Cornwallis.”
“His is
mucho
bad.”
“So I’ve heard. But I’ve got to find him, an’ I’m willin’ to pay for the information of where his rooms is an’ what he looks like.”
From beyond the open doorway someone called for the boy. He turned and yelled something back that Maggie didn’t understand, then came to her.
“How much?”
Maggie didn’t hesitate. She drew out the poke from her pocket and handed it over but kept the drawstring clenched tight in her hand. “Feel the weight. There’s more than enough for what I’m lookin’ to know.”