She turned her attention to him. She told herself she had no desire to be in J.
Weston Cooper’s arms. She had just wanted him to see her successfully playing her role…adding something to Glory Town instead of being an albatross as she was sure Buck must have described her.
Nick cleared his throat. She realized he had asked her a question and she hadn’t heard. She turned a smile on him and, after casting one more look at the saloon doors gently swinging back in place, patted Nick’s hand. “A root beer on ice would be nice.”
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Midnight. The town closed at ten. It was quiet except for the ever-present wind that rolled down the deserted street and played along the sidewalks, through the porch posts, leaving ghostly, red, dusty tracks.
Her home was the Donaldson Hotel. One room or ten. The entire lower floor consisted of lobby, dining room, and kitchen. In the daytime it might be teeming with tourists either climbing the stairs and wandering the re-created rooms or sitting down to a nice steak and potato meal and sopping wonderful, huge homemade biscuits through thick flour gravy with fresh apple pie for dessert.
But at night…it was all hers.
Heavy velvet drapes lined the tall windows. They had once been a bright eye-catching emerald green. Tonight they appeared to be the limbs of a weeping willow, dull and saggy. The mantel over the fireplace supported a branding iron and over it hung a painting, slightly askew, of pioneers making their way west by wagon train and an aging woman soaking her feet in a nearby stream while her husband stood guard.
The furniture was Victorian and old, but still functional. A sizable bank loan would bring this place up. That, in turn, would bring in more tourists, drawing more money. Most of the businesses were owned by the people occupying the trailers on the back lot. They paid a small rent on the buildings and a percentage of their profits to Victoria and Buck.
But the hotel and dining room were theirs and the money from the horseback rides helped. She would like to eventually rent out rooms as she was told they did years ago when there had been a piano player and then the visitors danced and sang the night away.
They also owned the saloon, and even though they served nothing but soft drinks and snacks, there had once been a bigger show than Roxey and Lola singing “She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain.” She hoped the people she hired
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earlier would spice up the show. Before, there had been a cover charge and a night’s entertainment, not just a small souvenir counter and a cooler filled with ice cream. All these things had to be brought back if this old town was to survive.
And she was determined it would. It meant too much to her to watch it decay.
And even if Buck didn’t realize it right now, it was important to him, too.
It would all be so simple if she just wrote a draft from her bank and put her money to work, but that was what her mother was waiting for her to do. Trust funds and IRAs and CDs that belonged to Victoria were the result of old, moldy family money, and even at this age, she would have to get permission to move such a huge amount. Control. Some people could never relinquish it and her mother was a prime example. She was hoping Victoria would fail in this venture as she had secretly hoped she would at everything. Victoria had sensed it every time she tried something new. Her mother didn’t hide the fact that she thought women should hang on a man’s arm, adorn his home, and bear his children in quiet and loving peace. Victoria chuckled.
Tired after the long day but not yet ready to retire upstairs to her room, Victoria sat in an overstuffed powder blue chair in the cozy lobby, one leg slung over the arm.
She had opened the fake cupboard to reveal the television and was now snuggled in to watch a rerun of
Gunsmoke.
Victoria had always been fascinated by the Wild West. The rough-riding cowboys and Indians and cavalry and trail drives. She had read books, fiction and nonfiction, whenever she had had the chance. Victoria knew all about Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill, the James boys, and the Youngers. This was like waking up after falling asleep in a movie theater, finding you had somehow slipped through the giant screen to stand up on the other side. Now that Victoria had everything 44
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she needed to propel herself back to a time that enchanted her, she wanted it to be perfect.
There was a certain freedom in the Old West. Laws were tested as soon as they were made. A man’s mettle was his reputation. Some of the women, outlaws and girlfriends of desperadoes, dared to be what they wanted even back in those days. When she was younger, Victoria had dreamed of being one of those women. Riding beside her man, firing her gun at the law fast on their heels, hiding out at the Hole-in-the-Wall, bandages and beef already at the waiting.
During a commercial, Victoria walked barefoot back to the room behind the dining room that served as office for the CPA who came in once a week to bring everything up to date and be sure taxes were filed and paychecks written.
Pulling the clipboard off the wall, she unsnapped the profit and loss statements from under the metal clip and returned to her chair, snagging a bag of chips on her way to munch on.
Glory Town wasn’t in dire straits. Things were tight and had to be managed properly, but with a nice fat loan, the tourist business could be increased two hundred percent. Prices needed to be adjusted. Victoria had spent many an afternoon in Tulsa and Oklahoma City comparing price tags on T-shirts and boots, Western clothes, and souvenirs. She had compared their prices with those of a few other restaurants in town. They were selling below market value.
No one had bothered to assess these things in years. She wondered what kind of a man her uncle had been. It seemed neither of the partners had a real head for business. If it wasn’t for the bookkeeper that Victoria strongly suspected had gently led the men along, the place could have folded years ago.
On the television, Marshal Dillon headed up a posse hot on the heels of a gang of bandits. The gunfire drew her undivided attention for a while. Horses’
hooves pounded the earth, sending spirals of dust behind them. The men rode
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low and bent in the saddle, hats flapping in the breeze. They cornered the outlaws in a blind canyon and slid off their horses in one smooth motion and ran to hide behind boulders, guns drawn. A volley of gunfire was exchanged. One man grabbed his midsection and, with a screwed-up face and blood dripping from between his fingers, twisted and flopped to the ground. Another took a bullet in the head, threw his rifle in the air, and fell off a small cliff, body sliding and skidding in the dust. She studied the movements and the actions. A wry smile appeared on her face. Yes, her men needed a lot of improvement.
From the books Victoria had seen, the men’s pay had remained relatively the same for some years based on the take from the gate. From time to time, the odd, occasional bonus kept them going, but they would all enjoy seeing long lines at the entrance, knowing the money was going to get better. Besides, they had to be tightened up and sharpened a little. To do that, they needed an incentive.
Victoria looked forward to meeting with Bill Boyd in Dallas about that loan the next morning.
Tapping the pencil on the board, she let her imagination run. Paint, lumber, new harnesses and fences. The gallows that the tourists liked to climb up on and put their necks in the breakaway noose was actually getting downright wobbly.
More material for the seamstress so she could make new and better costumes instead of merely repairing the old ones.
A shiny new spittoon for the saloon and a few of the new gaming tables.
Pool would be good. Every man liked to do that. And flashy, silver-laden saddles and bridles for some of the horses. And some potted plants for the lobby of the hotel…Her mind whirled and filled way beyond her means but it was fun to dream and imagine. She knew limitations and priorities would have to be considered. But that was okay. Her town was going to thrive and simply teem with tourists. Everyone would be happy.
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A commercial touting the benefits of trying the four flavors of oatmeal ended and
Gunsmoke
was back on. This scene was in a saloon. Her set wasn’t far off but could use some more props.
The marshal and Festus walked down the street of Dodge City, Matt assuring his deputy that all the bad men were captured and safely in jail. The credits began to run up the screen and the theme song faded into the background.
Half an hour later, her head stuffed with plans, she turned off the TV, snapped lights off in her wake, and headed for bed. After dreaming about the legends and the mystery and the wildness of the Old West, she could now taste it and live it. Victoria planned on propelling herself into the untamed, adventurous life portrayed here. This was as close as she would ever get and it excited her.
Motivated her. The hell with the people who would like to see her fail.
Tomorrow would be a good day. She would make it one. It would be the real beginning of her new life here. And if that included getting along with or at least tolerating J
.
Weston Cooper, then so be it.
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Chapter Three
For the next several days, things ran pretty smoothly. Victoria attended some of Wes’s instructional sessions but during others she was busy. Buck kept a quiet eye on her. He seemed to be mellowing just a bit, but Victoria didn’t trust it. She was still a long way from being accepted.
It was seven o’clock on Tuesday and they had the usual light count of tourists. Having just returned from her trip to Dallas, jetting down and back in the same day, Victoria headed for the barn after dropping her luggage in her room and changing to jeans and a T-shirt. She was anxious to ride a while and spend some time with her horse.
As she approached the barn, she heard shooting and knew that once again Wes was giving lessons. Her gelding had been stabled inside. Hurrying her steps a bit, she swung around the corner and spotted the horse out in the paddock with another she hadn’t remembered seeing. Parked behind the barn was a pickup and attached to that was a stately lettered trailer. COOPER RANCH.
She bristled just a little. Flashy. Pretentious. She crossed her arms over her chest. He moved his horse down here, just as he’d said he would. It was a beautiful palomino; his white tail and mane, groomed and flowing, were velvety and long.
Lifting the latch on the gate, Victoria walked through, pushed it closed behind her, and strolled over to the new occupant. The horse was friendly and nosed the hand she offered him. As Victoria ran her hand along the horse’s back and sides, she noticed the soft sheen. She wanted to ask Wes what he used on him and that griped her.
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Hearing Wes’s patient and deep voice, instructing the men on what was called a trade-off, she let her curiosity get the best of her. Giving the horses one last scratch on the ears, she left them to move into the doorway and watch.
As he stood behind a table, the men in various places alongside him, Wes placed two guns. One was a single-action .45
and the other a lever action .30.30.
The targets were tacked to the new wall Wes and some of the men had made. It consisted of four-by-six’s formed with a hollow section and filled with dirt. A thick sheet of metal, plywood, metal again, and more wood stopped the lead.
He asked one of the men to call “go” and in a split second he fired the .45
and, with the same hand, set it down and picked up the rifle, levered it, and fired before replacing it on the table.
It was a blur of sound and motion. Both bull’s-eyes. Victoria had never seen anything like it. And judging from the murmuring and the “God’s britches!,”
neither had the men. Pappy, Buck’s aging foreman, simply stood off to one side, shaking his head and grinning from ear to ear.
Nick stepped up. “Been doin’ that for years,” he boasted. “It’s no big deal.”
He grinned at the other men, confident he could follow Wes’s act.
Cooper backed up and gave Nick the table. Nick fired both guns concurrently but without nearly the speed Cooper had displayed. Eyes down, he dropped the guns on the table. Nick stepped back. “I’m a little out of practice.
Don’t matter none. We don’t have a sharpshooting show.”
“We will from now on and all of you are going to get good at it. You’re just out of practice, Nick. The two of us will specialize in the hand-clap draw.
I bet you’re familiar with that one. We’ll end the show with my clapping my hands together, catching your gun between them, a holster draw, and one coming from out of your belt from behind your back. Now for instinct shooting.”
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Victoria didn’t miss the resentful look Nick cast toward Wes. Wes wasn’t there to show Nick up, but Nick would never see it for that.
He went on with his instructions in his calm, tireless teacher-like voice.
“Instinct shooting is just that. You’ll learn not to take aim, just fire. After enough practicing you’ll get the hang of it. Billy, would you line six of those beer cans up on the shelf?”
While Billy did that, Wes flexed his fingers and dropped the .45
back into his holster. He turned his back to Billy and told him, “Now rearrange them and yell when you’re clear.”
Wes saw Victoria watching and smiled at her. Billy yelled and Wes spun, yanking the revolver from the leather. Victoria never saw him stop spinning, for the instant he leveled with the cans he pulled the trigger, the other hand fanning the hammer. He popped them all. Six cans exploded and fell at almost the exact same time.