The Fortune (22 page)

Frankie didn’t think she would sleep after such a tumultuous day, one filled with ups and down, pleasure and pain. However, safe in John’s arms, sleep crept over her and she slid into an uneasy slumber.

The sun shone brightly through the white lace curtains, decorating the room in sparkles of gold. John opened his eyes and looked at the sleeping woman beside him. When they were using bedrolls, there wasn’t much opportunity to see her laid out on sheets or buck naked. There hadn’t been a chance to make love either. Her curly reddish-brown hair spread out like a fan on the white sheets. She lay on her stomach, her head turned toward the center of the bed, snoring softly.

One bare leg poked out from beneath the covers, tantalizingly creamy skin gleamed in the morning light. He knew the feel of her body, the taste of her skin and the power of her passion. Sleeping with her, making love to her, in a bed had changed everything.
 

Everything
.

He’d known she was the woman he wanted to marry almost from the moment she’d shot him in Independence, although he hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself. But last night showed him so much more than that. She was part of him, the other half of his soul he hadn’t realized was missing. He shook from the knowledge his life would never be the same. She had changed him permanently.

John eased out of the bed, deciding to let her sleep longer. They had bathed after their first bout in the bed, which led to a second turn in the sheets. She was surely exhausted from that, as well as the hard riding they’d done. An extra few hours of sleep would be good for her. They had several days of hard riding to catch up to the wagon train. As John and Frankie had moved west and south, the wagon train had been moving steadily east.

After putting his trousers on, he slipped out of the room and padded barefoot to the kitchen. The house was quiet and eerie. After Frankie woke, they would get out of there as soon as possible. He hadn’t forgotten whose house they slept in. The pall of death hung in the still air and a shiver chased up his spine.

His good mood vanished and he focused on making coffee, a mundane task to take his mind off things. He stoked a fire in the big cook stove and put the coffee to boil. The front door opened and closed and he turned to find Elias standing there, hat in hand. Beside him stood an older, balding stranger with spectacles perched on his hawk-like nose, wearing a natty brown suit and carrying a sheaf of papers.

“Morning.” John wished he had taken the time to grab his shirt and boots. He felt half-naked and definitely underdressed.

“Malloy. This here is Hiram Johnson. He’s the lawyer Fuller knew.” Elias’s voice was laced with tiredness. He didn’t appear to have slept much, if at all. No one had been closer to Fuller than the big foreman. He had lost his best friend and John’s return had been the catalyst to the tragedy.

“Mr. Johnson.” John nodded. “Let me get dressed and we can have some coffee.”

He tiptoed into the guest room where Frankie slept and snored. Seeing her, smelling her unique scent, calmed him, chased away the anxiety of whatever Elias and Mr. Johnson wanted. He pulled on his boots and shirt quickly, then couldn’t stop himself from leaning down to kiss the woman he loved. He pressed his lips to the shoulder peeping out from the sheets. Taking a deep breath of Frankie, he felt ready to go back into the kitchen and find out what else was about to go wrong in his world.

The smell of the coffee led him into the kitchen. Elias and Mr. Johnson sat at the table talking softly. John filled three cups and set them down before joining them. He took a swallow of the scalding brew and waited.

“Fuller had Mr. Johnson write up a will for him. I had Jonas go fetch him after the burial.” Elias put his hands around the cup, but he didn’t drink.

Mr. Johnson slurped his coffee noisily, then smacked his lips. “Good coffee, Mr. Malloy. I haven’t had a strong cup like this since Mrs. Johnson passed five years ago.”

“The will, Hiram. Let’s get this over with,” Elias growled at the old man.

“Don’t be in such a rush, Elias. The ranch will keep for an hour. The men know what they’re doing.” Mr. Johnson seemed to know the foreman well. John was glad someone else was the one telling the big man what to do. It was hard enough to endure Elias’s censure when he worked for him as much as it was now.

The lawyer slurped his coffee some more, much to the foreman’s annoyance. John watched, silently amused by the exchange between the men. Whatever the will was, it would not affect him. As soon as Frankie was up and dressed, they were on their way. He didn’t want to stay a moment longer than necessary in the house that had become a mausoleum. Although he’d slept hard when he wasn’t making love to his woman, his dreams were full of memories from the day before. There was too much death on the Gates ranch.

“Now let me see what we’ve got here.” Mr. Johnson shuffled his papers, pushed up his glasses and peered squinty-eyed at the words. “Fuller wrote a will about two years ago. Wanted to make sure Phoebe was taken care of.”
 

What he didn’t say hung in the air. Fuller knew his daughter needed help, but he didn’t take action other than providing for her in his will. His inaction had caused his death and hers. It was a tragedy beyond comprehension. John swallowed a gulp of hot coffee, dislodging the emotional lump that had formed in his throat. Definitely needed to be on his way as soon as possible.

“He had no kin to speak of. He considered his men to be family. Elias, he left the ranch and nearly everything to you, including the house and the contents.”

John had never seen the foreman at a loss for words until now. The man’s mouth opened and closed, while his cheeks flushed a deep pink. It was a gift of epic proportions to a loyal foreman, even if he was a pain in the ass most of the time.

“Me?” Elias finally found his voice, and it was rougher than sandpaper. “Why in tarnation would he leave it to me?”

Mr. Johnson’s silvery brow went up. “You’ve been his foreman and best friend for twenty years. Why wouldn’t he leave it to you?”

“You said it. I’m a foreman, not a rich rancher. I wouldn’t know what to do with the ranch. Probably run it into the ground in a year.” Elias stared down at his hands, stained and callused.

“I don’t believe that and neither do you. You have a good crew of men. The first thing you need to do is hire a bookkeeper and a foreman.” Mr. Johnson patted the big man’s arm. “I will help you.”

Elias glanced up at John. “What about Malloy? He can do my job with his eyes closed.”

Surprised by the compliment, John didn’t respond for a few beats. “I’ve got my eye on a piece of property in Wyoming territory. I need to get out of Missouri for good.” He looked Elias in the eye. “But I appreciate the offer, more than you know.”

Elias scowled. “Well, damn, I need somebody that knows their ass from a hole in the ground.”

Mr. Johnson cleared his throat. “I’m certain we can find the right candidate for the job. Now as for the rest of the will. He left two thousand dollars in trust for you, Mr. Malloy. It’s been held at a bank in Kansas.”

Stunned didn’t even begin to describe what John felt. He mimicked the foreman’s behavior a few minutes earlier with his mouth moving like a fish.
 

“What? I didn’t hear you right. Two thousand dollars?” John’s cup bounced on the table.

“Yes, sir. He made that deposit when he wrote the will. Didn’t say why and it’s not my business to ask.” Mr. Johnson pushed a paper toward him along with an envelope. “This is the account information for you, and one hundred dollars cash. When you are ready for the funds, you can use this to access it.”

John stared at the neatly written paper and wondered if he was still lying in bed dreaming. He had given away the two hundred dollars it had taken him nearly three years to save. Now that his friend was dead, he had ten times that much. It was a fortune. Enough to build a ranch including a barn, a house and stock for the horse breeding. It was everything he wanted.

“Good morning, gentlemen.” Frankie’s lightly accented voice drifted across the room. She stepped up behind John, her scent tickling his nose. The bath soap had left her smelling like a field of flowers. His body tightened and he had the urge to scoop her up and find the bed again. His dick agreed wholeheartedly.

“Good morning, Madame.” Mr. Johnson jumped to his feet and bowed to her. “I am Hiram Johnson.”

John and Elias scrambled to their feet, duly chastised by the lawyer’s good manners. Frankie smiled at the older man.

“It is a pleasure to meet you,
monsieur
. I am Francesca Chastain, uh, Malloy.” She sat down beside John. “We’ve been married such a short time, I forget sometimes to use John’s name.”

Elias looked dumbstruck and the lawyer’s eyes were wide. John turned and looked at his “wife” and was struck stupid by her incredible beauty. The sun caressed the smooth porcelain skin of her cheek while it sparkled in the reddish brown curls that lie on her slender shoulders.

She was exquisite.

“The pleasure is all mine.” Mr. Johnson went back to his papers. “There is also a bequest to you Mr. Malloy for a dam and a sire of your choice.”

“He left you two horses?” Frankie took his hand. “You can use them to start your own ranch.” She had no idea about the two thousand dollars. John would give her the details later when he wasn’t tongue-tied and tangled up in his thoughts.
 

Elias cleared his throat. “Anything else in those papers?”
 

“There are a few things for both of you to sign, but otherwise, that’s the whole of it. The rest of the will was rendered null when Miss Phoebe died.” Mr. John blew out a breath. “Given the circumstances, I wanted to get things taken care of immediately to make sure the Gates ranch continues to operate.”

“It will go on. Fuller made sure everyone who worked here did their job. I plan on doing the same.” Elias threw back the rest of his coffee. “Let’s get the signing over with so I can get to work.”

They spent a few minutes making the papers official using Mr. Johnson’s pen and inkwell. He set the papers to dry and rose to get more coffee. Elias got to his feet and plopped his hat on his head.

“I’ll find someone to drive you back to your house, Hiram. When you’re ready, come find me.” Elias looked at John. “I’ll be in the mares’ barn.” With that, the foreman nodded at Frankie and left the house.

“Are we leaving soon?” Frankie spoke softly.

“As soon as we can. Let’s eat and we can go.” John got to his feet. “I saw some eggs and ham. I’ll fry them up for all of us.”

Frankie watched him with a small smile on her face. “I did not know you were a chef.”

“You don’t know all my secrets.” He put the frying pan on the stove to heat.

“Not yet.”

John snorted and got to work making breakfast. “You want some vittles, Mr. Johnson?”

The lawyer stood by the wood sink sipping a second cup of coffee. He shook his head. “I had an early meal before I got here. I’m selfishly enjoying this coffee before I have to leave.”

Frankie conversed with Mr. Johnson, her demeanor comfortable with a man who made his living with papers. He didn’t even have a single callus, but she knew how to talk to him. Did she belong on a ranch with John Malloy, away from society? Hell, she was from New York, and even though she left for good, she was obviously better than him. He was the son of a dirt farmer, a nobody who scraped by on the scraps of life.

He loved her enough to bring her back to her family, and to the future that Oregon would give her. It shook him to the core to contemplate asking her to marry him. What he had to do was give her the choice—a hard life in Wyoming as the wife of a horse rancher or life with her family in the land of milk and honey.

He could only hope she made the right choice.

Frankie stepped outside the Gates house and sucked in a big breath of air. Being in the building had been uncomfortable at best. There was a heaviness, a pall that hung in the air of infinite sadness. She could feel the spirit of the young woman, the confusion and despair, and the helplessness. She understood those feelings too well. Phoebe’s death had affected Frankie, struck her with the force of a punch. The choices Fuller Gates had made were the wrong ones, but done out of love for his daughter.

The ranch itself was healthy and outside the house, everyday life continued on. The trainers worked with the colts in a corral, others groomed mares, and yearlings frolicked in the paddock further away. It was normal, but her stomach was tied in a knot and she wanted to leave this place.
 

John stepped up behind her, his presence helping to calm the anxiety racing through her. “Let’s go get Blue and be on our way.” He tucked an envelope into his trouser pocket and took her hand.

His large paw swallowed hers, chasing away more of the coldness she’d been battling since she climbed out of the warm bed. She wanted to know what the men had been discussing before she came into the kitchen, and what was in the envelope.

John would tell her, that was certain. She wouldn’t allow him to keep any more secrets. They had shared too much of each other. There was also the matter of his confession of love. Her heart did a funny flip each time she thought of it. He hadn’t repeated it since, but she didn’t believe it was because he had lied in the heat of the moment. The words had been full of emotion, and in French. They had gone straight through her heart, lodging there in a deep corner, never to be dislodged.