Dorothy Garlock - [Wyoming Frontier] (30 page)

“Justin said something about getting a house here for the summer. I hope and pray it was just something he said to worry me.” Helga turned to Katy. “I’m sorry that I brought troubles to you and Garrick on your wedding day.”

“I wish . . . I wish there was a way that we could be friends.”

“My husband doesn’t allow me to have friends,” she whispered and tried desperately to blink away the tears that filled her eyes. “I wish you every happiness.”

Rowe held open the door. As Helga passed him, he placed his hand on her shoulder and a kiss on her cheek. He watched as she hurried down the hall to the stairs, then he went to the window and watched her walk quickly down the street and into the Chinese laundry.

When Rowe turned from the window, his eyes met Katy’s. She was standing at the end of the bed.

“I suppose you’re wondering what this is all about?”

“I don’t have to wonder about one thing. That poor woman is scared to death of your brother.”

Rowe combed his hair with his fingers. He went to Katy and placed his hands on her shoulders, looking at her earnestly before he pulled her against him and wrapped his arms around her. She tilted her face. Her eyes were filled with love and trust. His eager kiss traveled over her face.

“I want to tell you about my mother, my father, and Justin.”

“You don’t have to tell me now. I don’t care about them. Only you.”

“I want to tell you.” Rowe moved to the side of the bed taking her with him. He sat on its edge and pulled her down on his lap.

“I’m worried,” Katy said, hiding her face in his shoulder. “How can you protect yourself from hired killers?”

“Find them before they find me. Justin hates me more than anything in the world. When he discovers that you’re my wife, he’ll hate you too, and he’ll hurt you if he can. I want you to know about it before we say our vows.”

“What did you ever do to him to make him hate you so?”

“I was born,” he said simply. He leaned back against the head of the bed and cuddled her in his arms.

While Rowe talked, he stroked her hair. He told her about his father, Preston Rowe, a widower who went to Paris and met a Greek girl, fell in love, and married her.

“Justin-was eight years old when I was born. At first, my parents thought his dislike of me was due to natural rivalry between brothers. Then several things happened and my mother became convinced they were not just accidents.

“When I was three or four, my bed caught fire from a candle when there had been no candles in the room. When I was five, Justin tried to drown me. Father came running to the river edge when he heard my screams. Justin pretended to be saving me, but Father dressed him down severely for letting me get close to the bank. Another time Justin grabbed my feet and pulled me out of a tree causing me to break my arm. If I had a kitten, a frog, a puppy, or any small pet, it would turn up dead. He was constantly calling me black boy and telling me I was as black as the slaves. I was terrified of him.”

“Was your father aware of what Justin was doing?”

“Father never knew the extent of Justin’s hatred of me and my mother. I was eight when Justin went away to school. When he came home on vacations, Father was very busy. Mother managed to keep me out of Justin’s way. As he got older, Justin became very sly and kept his hatred bottled up while in the presence of my father. As Father’s health began to decline, he depended more and more on Justin. I went away to school, then to the war. I returned home to find Justin firmly entrenched in the business. It was all right with me. I wasn’t interested in banking and finance. Then Father died five years ago. After the funeral I took Mother to Paris. The estate on the Hudson was no longer her home. She died last year.”

“I find it hard to believe that your half brother would follow you all the way out here to do you harm.” Katy raised her head so that she could look into Rowe’s face. Her lashes lifted, revealing to him the worry in her eyes.

“You wouldn’t find it hard to believe if you knew Justin, sweetheart. Long ago I stopped trying to figure him out. I just stay away from him.” He dropped a kiss around the curving line of her mouth.

“What are you going to do?”

“I want more than anything in the world to marry you. I wanted us to have a beautiful wedding that you can look back on and tell our children and grandchildren about. Now, I’m afraid that Justin will figure a way to hurt me through you.”

“I’m afraid for you! Oh, Rowe! Let’s get out of this rotten town and go back to Trinity.”

“First we’re going to be married. Anton is probably downstairs waiting for me. I’ll have him make arrangements. After we’re married, we’ll ride out.” Rowe hugged her close and murmured, “It isn’t the kind of wedding I wanted for you, my love—”

Rowe’s face had a taut, almost agonized expression that pierced Katy’s heart. Protectiveness came boiling up inside her. How dare that pissant of a half brother make his life miserable!

“Shhh . . . Do you think that I’m so frivolous that I have to have ribbons and lace to remember my wedding day? Darling, it’ll be a wedding I’ll be proud to tell our children about. For all I care, you can have the preacher come here, and I’ll wear this bedsheet to give more spice to add to the story.”

The intensity of his love for her shook him, and like the surging warmth of the sun, a radiant feeling of being at last complete spread through him. Dear God, how wonderful she was!

“I love you, my Nightrose,” he said, his voice rough with the effort it took not to let her see the moisture in his eyes.

“I love you.” The unfamiliar words sounded strange coming from her own lips. She tried them again. “I love you.” It was easier the second time. She wrapped her arms about his neck. “I love you,” she said with the tip of her nose pressed to his.

Rowe found Anton in the corner of the hotel lobby, his head tilted back against the wall, a newspaper over his face. Rowe jerked the paper aside and Anton was instantly awake.

“Holy hell, Rowe. I didn’t get much sleep last night,” Anton complained and stretched, then pushed his glasses up on his nose.

“What did you find out?”

“Plenty.”

“Let’s have it.” Rowe glanced around the lobby to see if anyone was within hearing distance, then sat down.

“Justin and his wife are registered at the Anaconda. At least she’s registered as his wife. I didn’t have any trouble spotting him at the Occidental Billiard Hall. The way he looks and dresses, he stood out like a privy in the moonlight. He had already made the acquaintance of our friend from the bank, Oscar Gable. They attended the show at the Opera House and later went up the hill to the house of the woman they call ‘the Doll.’”

“Good God! That place is an opium den. I thought Justin had more sense than that.”

“I heard you can get any kind of dope you want there. Any kind of sex too. Maybe I ought to try it.” Mischief lit Anton’s eyes through the oval wires of his glasses.

“She sets a trap with sex and dope,” Rowe growled.

“How do you know so much about it?”

“I’ve been to the Barbary Coast. Places such as the Doll House are common there.”

“Justin may have met his match with that woman.”

“Time will tell. What else did you find out?”

“Gable is enamored of your little friend, Nan Neal. He never misses one of her shows. Afterwards, he usually heads for one of the cribs in the lower part of town, but last night he went up the hill because more likely your brother was paying.”

“Paying for information. Justin does nothing out of the kindness of his heart.”

“I hung around until about two o’clock, then went back to the boardinghouse to bed.”

“That’s the reason Justin is sleeping late this morning.”

“What?”

Rowe told Anton in as few words as possible about Helga’s visit, ending with, “It took an extraordinary amount of courage for her to come warn me. Justin would make her suffer if he knew. He’s taken her son away from her and holds the threat over her head that she may never see him again. What a hell of a way to live.”

“He and Gable were pretty thick last night. They had their heads together for several hours. Gable knows Justin has money and he’ll play him for as much of it as he can get. He’s not above setting up a murder.”

“Katy and I will be married today. Then, we’ll go back to Trinity. It goes against the grain to run from my own brother, but it would go harder if I had to kill him.”

“Too bad he even found out you’re here.”

“Coincidences.” Rowe grinned. “Two, in fact, provided by fate. One brought us here at this time; the other let us know Justin was here.”

“You really believe in that malarky?”

“Why not? It’s better than not believing it.” Rowe sobered. His dark brows drew together in a deep frown. “Find the preacher of that church with the cross on top and tell him we’ll be there in, say”—he drew out his pocket watch and consulted it—“about two hours. Tell him that Katy has a jealous suitor who has threatened her, and that we want to be married quietly so we can get out of town.”

“You expect me to lie to a preacher?”

“Sure. You’ve done it before. Remember the time in Minnesota when—”

“Never mind. Have you forgotten that Hank shot the top off that cross? The preacher was mad as hell.”

“He got over it when we paid for it and bought him a glass window to boot.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“Three things. The first is to write out a will and get it over to Wells Fargo to post. The second is to call on a friend of mine over on Idaho Street.”

“You’d go see
her
when you’re marrying Katy today?”

“We’re friends, just friends.”

“Bull hocky! What’s the third?”

“Never mind. Be at the church with the preacher in two hours. And spruce yourself up a little for my wedding—huh?”

Rowe found Beulah, ordered a breakfast to be taken to Katy, then asked the desk clerk for paper, pen, and ink. He took it to a corner of the lobby and wrote busily for a quarter of an hour. When he finished, he carefully read what he had written before he put the paper in the envelope and addressed it to his attorney in New York City.

On the porch of the hotel he paused to look up and down the flag-draped street. Already, it was clogged with wagons of farm and ranch families, miners from the Alder Gulch area, and a large number of lonely drifters hungering for female company. It would be a big day for the hurdy-gurdy girls, the saloons, billiard parlors, and brothels. By afternoon, when the contests began, the street would be a sea of people, dancing, singing, and celebrating.

After Rowe posted his letter with the Overland Mail, he went to the livery to look in on his horse and the mare Katy had ridden. He was pleased to see the cut on the horse’s rump was healing. He left the livery and walked along the back of the buildings until he reached the one that housed the hurdy-gurdy girls. The backs of the structures along this side of the street, having been undermined by water rushing down hill, were supported by ten-foot stilts. Rowe went quickly up the side stairs, down a dark hall to a room on the end, and rapped smartly on the door.

“Who is it?” The irritated voice came after Rowe had knocked repeatedly.

“Rowe.” He spoke quietly and wasn’t sure he had been heard until a key turned in the lock and a disheveled Nan Neal opened the door.

“Darlin’! This is a hell of a time to come callin’.” Dark hair framed a pixie face with a wide generous mouth and slightly turned up nose. The wide neck of the garment she wore had slipped off her shoulder and hung beneath a small, firm, rosy-tipped breast. She made no attempt to cover it.

“Hello, sleepyhead. Were you going to sleep all day and miss the big doings?” Rowe gently pushed her back until he could come into the room and close the door. He reached for her, pulled the gown up over her breast, then held her shoulders to keep her from wrapping her arms about him.

“I want to talk to you, honey.”

“Talk? You’re enough to make a preacher cuss. You’d rather talk than go to bed?”

“I need your help. I’m getting married today.”

“Married? Oh, poot!” She stomped her bare foot. “You know I don’t diddle with married men. Why do all the good men get
married
? Mara Shannon snatched Pack right out from under my nose, and now you’re gettin’ yourself tied up. Who is she? I’ll pull her hair out.”

Rowe chuckled. He knew that Nan’s talk was just that— talk. She loved her life of singing and dancing and turned down proposals of marriage on almost a weekly basis. She could have her choice of any number of men who had the means to take care of her in grand style, but she refused to give up her independence.

“You wantin’ to get married, honey?” he teased.

“Hell, no!” she flared, then gave him a sideways flirtatious glance. “You askin’?”

“I’m taken, but I bet I could get Oscar Gable for you.”

“That pissant! How did you know about him? I’m goin’ to use his balls for target practice if he don’t stop followin’ me around with that big stick in his britches and the look of a dying cow on his face.”

“Do you suppose you could get any information out of him?”

“Rowe, darlin’”—Nan’s lips curled in a crooked, confident smile—“I can make him pee his pants by just lookin’ at him. He’d babble like a brook if I worked on him just a little bitty bit. Tell me what you want to know.”

“Nothing right now. Sit down, honey. I’ve something to tell you.”

Rowe told Nan about Justin and his newly formed friendship with Oscar Gable.

“That big, light-haired man that was with Oscar last night is your half brother? Holy shit! His eyes were as cold as a bucket of ice.”

Rowe explained that if his half brother hired someone to kill him or sabotage his lumber business, Gable would be in on it. He asked Nan to keep her ears open and get word to Anton if she heard anything.

“I will, darlin’. I sure as hell will. Now tell me about this woman who stole you away from me.”

“She’s about your size, only a little bigger up here,” Rowe laughed and pulled on the rosette at the neck of her gown.

“Bigger ain’t always better, you silly man!” Nan flashed him a grin. “I bet she can’t kick the hat off your head.”