WildOutlaws (7 page)

“We’ll answer your questions on the way to Tombstone,” David told her.

“Yes, well, about that,” she began. “I’m willing to consider your offer but first, I want a trial period.”

“How long?” Creed asked, arching a brow.

“I don’t know. I may be a whore but my Ma never raised an idiot. I’d be a blasted fool to ride out into that prairie with five men I don’t know. We’ll stay right here in Cripple Creek and start your lessons tomorrow. You wouldn’t expect a woman you marry to take off on a long trip with you before you’ve even had relations. Don’t expect the same from me.”

“If it’s the relations you’re worried about,” Buck said. “We’re willing to get that part out of the way.”

“I’m sure you are,” Mary Margaret said, smiling sweetly. “But that too will have to wait. We’re taking things slow. Remember, I’m teaching you to behave like gentlemen and by the time I’m through with you, every woman in the West will line up for miles to meet the most eligible bachelors in Colorado.”

“Arizona,” Tuff grumbled.

“There, too.”

* * * *

 “Mary Margaret, you’ve become a proper whore,” Annabelle drawled later that evening when she entered her sleeping chambers. “I tried every way in the world to get one of those men to take me upstairs and pay for my time. Nary a one was interested.”

“We’re working under an arrangement,” Mary Margaret told her, redressing her bed with soft cotton sheets.

“You didn’t have to tell me. Why do you think I said you’re a proper whore?” Annabelle turned up her whiskey glass.

Mary Margaret stared at the bottle dangling from her fingertips. “Annabelle, you’ve had enough to drink, honey. Let me walk you to your room and tuck you into bed.”

“My room is next door.” She took a swig from the bottle. “Are you making a pass at me?”

Taken aback, Mary Margaret’s palm flew to her chest. “Absolutely not! Why would you say something like that?”

“I guess I’d be honored if the greatest whore to ever work in Cripple Creek’s finest establishment had a thing for me!” she slurred, teetering around the room and grabbing hold of whatever piece of furniture she could use to steady herself.

Mary Margaret had dealt with one round of jealousy after another ever since she started working in the business. She hated to see Annabelle slip into the clutches of envy. Besides, the young woman had nothing to worry about. She was younger, prettier, and had a better shape at twenty-something than Mary Margaret did as she climbed the hill toward forty. If Annabelle had one flaw—and she certainly did—it was her attachment to the bottle.

“I do have a thing for you,” Mary Margaret finally confessed, brushing Annabelle’s hair away from her face. “You’ve been like a kid sister to me since you moved in here. I look out for you, Annabelle and you know it. I love ya, kid and that’s why I’m gonna tell you why your personal business is declining.”

“I know why!” she bellowed. “You’re the whore with the golden twat! That’s why none of the rest of us can work!”

“Shh!” Mary Margaret said, placing her fingertips over the woman’s lips. Annabelle immediately nipped at the pads of her fingers and Mary Margaret backed away. “Don’t do that.”

“Why?” Annabelle asked, tilting her head and pushing her evening gown off her shoulders. “Don’t you find this attractive either?”

Mary Margaret rushed her before she dropped the entire front of her dress and exposed herself. She grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “Quit this right now. Do you hear me? I want you to stop this and pull yourself together.”

“See there,” Annabelle drawled. “You can take a sweaty, smelly man to bed, fuck him all night long but the thought of me sickens you to the quick. Maybe men are starting to see me through your eyes, too.”

“That’s not true, Annabelle. We’re friends. We’re family. We’ll always be like sisters.”

She laughed crudely, the wicked pitch in her voice nearly rocking the room. “I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”

A minute later she disappeared down the hall. It was the last time Mary Margaret saw her. The next morning, Annabelle was dead. A full glass of whiskey was on her bedside table, right next to an empty bottle of morphine and a piece of stationary with one word scribbled across the front—rejected.  

Chapter Five

Two days later, Annabelle was laid to rest in a cemetery at the foot of Pikes Peak. Mary Margaret requested the tombstone read:
Miners came to Cripple Creek digging for gold. Men came to Annabelle searching for pleasure.

That afternoon, she was condemned by the others working at the saloon. Constance slipped into her room later that evening and said, “If you were the one in that shallow grave, what would you have wanted on your tombstone?”

“Anything but that,” she readily admitted. “But those were the words Annabelle would’ve wanted.”

The following morning, she’d changed her mind. She met Tuff, Buck, Jared, David, and Creed for breakfast and to discuss her plans for the day.

The day Annabelle’s body had been discovered, Tuff sent word from the hotel expressing their condolences. He told her to take a few days for herself and invited her to breakfast on Saturday. It was Saturday and she still wanted a little time.

She needed to right one terrible wrong.

After explaining what she needed to do, the men argued over who would ride out to Pikes Peak.

“There’s a winter storm moving in,” Tuff said. “Mary Margaret, I think you should wait. No one will see the tombstone once this snow sets in.”

“It must be replaced right away,” Mary Margaret said firmly.

“Today?” Creed asked.

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” she replied, placing the napkin in her lap. They’d just taken their respective chairs around a dining table in Miner’s Restaurant, located at the foot of the steepest hill in Cripple Creek, home to one of the most profitable gold mines in Colorado.

Tuff folded his hands atop the table. “I think it’s risky. You could ride up there and pay hell trying to get back home.” A beat later, he perked up. “Tell you what. I’ll do it. Give me the stone you want to replace the one there and I’ll ride up there and take care of it.”

“That’s very generous of you, Tuff,” she said. “But I hope you understand. This is something I must take care of myself.”

He gritted his teeth. Apparently, he didn’t understand as much as she’d thought he might.

“Then I’ll ride with you.”

“No way,” David objected. “You’ve gotta contact the banks and do something about that bounty we were expecting. Otherwise, it’s hard to say where our money will end up.”

“He’s right,” Buck said.

David smiled smugly. “And that means Creed can’t go because he’s on the accounts with Tuff.”

Creed snarled. “Seems things are working out right nicely for you, huh?”

David smirked. “Then that leaves me, Jared, and Buck.”

“Jared needs to stay close to town,” Tuff said. “In case there’s any trouble.”

“Then it’s me and you, Buck,” David said. “Wanna draw straws?”

Tuff shook his head. “I can settle that battle. Buck and Jared will ride out with you. They’ll wait at the halfway mark. There’s a fork in the road down near the river right outside of town. If we’re expecting company, they’ll ride in from the north. They’ll cover the gap and keep a lookout. There’s an elevated spot with a good view of the road.” A beat later, he said, “David, if you aren’t back in a couple of hours, Buck will meet you. Jared, you’ll head back to town and let us know David and Mary Margaret are running late.”

Mary Margaret watched how easily Tuff took the lead. He was a natural for strategizing. She said, “Is there any particular reason why you’re expecting trouble?”

“Yes,” Tuff said. “But I’m not at liberty to discuss it with you or anyone else.”

“I see,” she said, thinking she should’ve pressed for information all the same. Cripple Creek was her town. She had friends there. If trouble was on the way, she wanted to warn the marshal, alert the bartender and girls at the saloon. She wanted them protected, too.

Tuff ordered a bountiful breakfast for all of them. Soon after, plates were served to the center of the table with helpings of scrambled eggs, platters of assorted meats, and lightly buttered rolls and jam.

“Dig in,” Buck said. “We need to hurry if you and David are gonna beat that storm.”

“No worries,” she assured him. “We still have time.” Having lived in Colorado for most of her life, she didn’t panic over the weather. Snow would cover the mountains surrounding Cripple Creek and the locals would go about their daily lives without ever glancing outside.

When winter arrived, Pat and Pudding Marks, owners of The General Store, had enough supplies for everyone including those miners suffering through the winter in their tent camp. In the worst of times, Pat and Pudding even opened up the back of their home to those living there. They offered hot meals and warm beds, all free of charge.

Excusing herself from the table, Mary Margaret thanked Tuff for the meal and told the others she would wait outside. By the time she secured the buttons on her winter coat, Buck, David, and Jared were already at the hitching post and ready to ride.

Staring out the window, her mind churned with possibilities. She was strangely comfortable around them. During breakfast, the conversation had ranged from foods they enjoyed to places they’d seen. They told her about Tombstone, a town she hadn’t frequented in a number of years. They spoke of places back East and described in vivid detail all the changes she’d missed in Stockton, California, her favorite bustling city.

On the way to the fork, the post Buck and Jared would assume, she asked, “Are the residents of Cripple Creek in any immediate danger?”

“No,” Jared assured her.

“Okay,” she said, willing to leave it at that.

About a half-mile down the road, she changed her mind. She looked at Buck. “Can you give me your word?”

“You’re asking a bounty hunter that question?” David asked, amused.

“Yes,” Buck said, noncommittal outside of the lone reply.

Before she could press again, the split divided them. Buck and Jared headed left. She and David veered off to the right. She found it strange when the men didn’t say anything. None of the usual, “We’ll see you in a few hours” or anything similar.

She and David rode out to the cemetery in a comfortable silence. Once there, she retrieved the stone from her saddle pack and placed another tombstone over the one already there. It read: A beautiful friend, a lovely person. Here lies the woman strangers knew as Annabelle. Others knew her as a special gift from heaven above. She will be missed. She was dearly loved.

“I didn’t know Annabelle but she was an entertaining woman,” David said, turning his gaze toward the snow-capped mountains. The first winter’s wrath had fallen in the higher elevations just a few days before. The ridge topping the peak glistened with ice, sparkling like millions of diamonds in the late fall high noon sunshine.

“Yes, she was,” Mary Margaret said, standing over the fresh grave. Swiping away a few dozen tears, she turned away from David, not because she was ashamed to show emotion or unwilling to let him console her but because she was afraid of what she might think of him if he didn’t respond to her as she expected.

David was a hardened man, a damn rogue of an outlaw, hiding behind legal forms and bounties to do what upstanding lawmen could not. He killed in cold blood. He dragged in the worst humans money could buy and asked for payment whether he brought them in dead or alive.

For some reason, Mary Margaret found him sexier by the minute.

His hands fell to her shoulders and he squeezed gently. “Come on, Mary Margaret. Let’s get back to town while the sun is still out. We’re bound to run into snow if we’re out here late.”

She knew he was right. The chill was in the air. She could smell the change in the weather. It felt like snow. Winter waited but it wouldn’t dally long. She inhaled the chilly breeze and dreaded the ride back, uneasy now to find herself in the company of a man she barely knew.

She took a deep breath and wondered then about the changes in herself. She’d been in the company of many strangers. For some reason she found it difficult to move beyond the growing apprehension of being somewhere alone with any of the men she’d recently met—Tuff, Buck, Jared, David, or Creed—if they were outside of the saloon.

Had she grown too dependent on her surroundings? If so, why? Was she fearful of the men because they wanted her to tread beyond the saloon doors or was she outright afraid of the men themselves?

It was the saloon. She’d been there too long.

The profession had ruined her, spoiled her even, in a weird sort of way. She could rely on the other girls to keep a watch out for her and return the favor.

Out here, there was no one. She had to trust the person beside her and what did she know about him? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

She gasped then. On second thought, she knew all a woman needed to know about a man. David was handsome, sexy, built like the trunk of a tree without a flaw to mention, and he was deadly. He could protect her.

“Are you okay?” he asked gently.

“Sure,” she replied, not at all convinced of the fact.

He offered her a cupped hand and she stepped into his palms, swinging her leg over the saddle. He waited at her side until she gathered her reins.

 “Annabelle was a good person.” She looked down on him with tears in her eyes.

“You don’t have to make me a believer,” he said, patting her thigh.

Mary Margaret stared at where his palm landed. She was supposed to train David and the others for a proper lady yet there she sat in riding pants, acting like a common whore. The title she wore certainly fit considering how quickly she responded to his touch.

“Next time you decide to take a ride in the middle of winter, allow some time to have britches tailor made for you.”

“Most ladies don’t ride in britches.”

“Some do,” he informed her.

“Not women in my profession,” she said. “Then again, I don’t suppose you think of me as a lady.”

“I think you are the most remarkable woman I’ve ever seen,” he said, reaching for her hand and squeezing her wrist.