LITMIR.BIZ

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tried sometimes, at Marielle’s urging, to find steadier work. He tried to grow up as fully as they both knew he needed to. But his every attempt ended up confirming the same foregone conclusion.

      “I can’t keep on with that job, Mari,” Hudson would say, shaking his head with his soft brown eyes fixed on hers. “Who will look after you while you’re dancing? I can’t leave you.”

      Every time, Marielle would soften. Every time, she would see the end arriving along with the beginning and be helpless to stop it. Because all she knew were dancing and sewing, and the former was much more lucrative than the latter. Plying her needle did not support two people nearly as well as dancing did.

      It would have been churlish of her to quit performing. Yes, Hudson enjoyed drinking and throwing dice at the saloon a bit too much. Yes, she regretted that her employment kept them both in such overall corrupting quarters. Jack Murphy’s saloon was better than most—better than many she’d worked in during her journey westward after her mother had passed on—but it was still a place where men went to imbibe, carouse, fight and forget.

      Sometimes, she thought, Hudson wanted to forget, too. Sometimes, she thought, Hudson missed New York, missed the backstage work he’d done at the fancy theater there, missed their mother and their absentee father most of all. But then her brother would make a joke or tug her hair or laugh over some memory of their time together back in the States—before it had all fallen apart—and Marielle would tell herself he was fine.

      After all, he had no more to forget than she did. If her own memories didn’t send her to drink and smoke and carouse to excess, then why would they do so to Hudson? Men could handle their intoxicants better than women, anyway. Everyone knew that.

      Her own father excepted, of course...

      A knock at the door jarred Marielle before she could fall straight into the quicksand of those darker memories. Puzzled and a mite vexed, she stared across the front room at the door.

      Another knock came. Louder this time.

      She looked at her ankle, duly wrapped in bandages and properly elevated on a footstool as the doctor had ordered. Doc Finney had left her with a crutch, but she hadn’t tried it yet. He’d also left her dosed with a quantity of laudanum for the pain, which—on top of the whiskey Jack had pressed upon her—had made her feel quite woozy. Also, clearly, far too melancholy.

      The third knock threatened to wake Hudson. That was more than Marielle would permit. Frowning anew, she grabbed her crutch and used it to lever herself out of her comfortable chair. She hobbled across the front room, paused to pull a warm blanket over Hudson against the chill that might come in with opening the door, then made her way to answer that summons.

      Most likely, she knew, it would be Doc Finney, returned to offer still more instructions or admonitions or medications. He’d told her that the keys to healing her injury were circular compression, something called perfect immobilization, and a hearty dose of that flawless healer: time. It had all sounded like a lot of fancy terms for wrapping and resting, but Marielle had followed his directives, all the same. Her livelihood depended on healing her ankle, and quickly.

      She couldn’t take chances. She had to get better.

      Leaning awkwardly on her crutch, Marielle worked the lock, bracing herself for the cool springtime chill that was coming. In the evenings, in this mountainous part of the territory, frostiness crept in and then sank into a person’s bones. She didn’t want a chill on top of everything else.

      She opened the door to an unexpected visitor. Startled, Marielle leaped back.

      Or at least she tried to. Instead, she stepped onto her hurt ankle, received a jolt of pain for her efforts and yelped.

      Behind her, Hudson stirred. He moaned. He began to snore again.

      At the doorway, the goose bumps that spread over Marielle’s body had nothing to do with the weather—and everything to do with the man who lounged in her open doorway, canny and mean.

      “’Evening, Miss Miller.” Charley Sheridan tipped his hat. It was too big for him—probably because he’d nicked it off a larger man—but no one would have dared laugh at that. Folks had heard tell of men getting knifed for less. Sheridan roamed his gaze over her. “How’s that ankle of yours doing?”

      “That’s none of your business.” Marielle wished she had something—anything—to cover up with. Instead, all she had was the costume she’d danced in. Although she’d set aside her frothy, feathered headdress and had lost her spangled fan someplace. “It’s too late for company, Mr. Sheridan. Good night.”

      Heart hammering, she tried to shut the door.

      Charley’s shoulder prevented it. “Well now, that ain’t neighborly at all, Miss Miller. I come here to talk to you.”

      Usually—and unfortunately—the Sheridans came to talk to Hudson. To get drunk with him and gamble with him. The four of them had been...well, Marielle couldn’t call them friends, exactly. But her brother had foolishly taken up with Charley, Peter and Levi once or twice. She hadn’t been able to stop him.

      Their influence had come along with his time at the saloon—another thing for which Marielle couldn’t help blaming herself. If not for her job dancing, none of them would have crossed paths. Charley certainly wouldn’t have been there bothering her.

      With a backward glance, Marielle made sure Hudson was sleeping. A disloyal part of her wished her brother would wake up and deal with this himself. It might have been nice to have had a genuine protector to rely on. But now, as usual, she had only herself. It was up to her to protect both of them.

      Wasn’t that what she’d promised, when Mama had been dying?

      “We have nothing to discuss.” Marielle jerked up her chin. “Certainly nothing that can’t wait until morning.”

      It was late enough there, on the outskirts of town, that no one was about. The birds were stilled in the darkened ponderosa pines. The moon provided most of the light on her front porch.

      “Ah, but this here can’t wait till morning.” Charley looked beyond her, into her house. “Ain’t you gonna invite me in?”

      As he moved to take the invitation she pointedly hadn’t offered, Marielle shoved him with her crutch. Charley was too surprised to object outright. He obligingly made room, looking amused, while she clumsily half hopped, half lumbered her way onto the porch. She shut the door. At this point, being outside with him felt safer than being in her own house with—she had to face facts—a passed-out-drunk Hudson as her only protection.

      Admitting as much, even to herself, made Marielle’s former wooziness subside, just a bit. Evidently, laudanum was no match for having a notorious outlaw appear at your door uninvited.

      “What do you want, Mr. Sheridan? I don’t have all night.”

      “Nope. What you have is...all of that.” His loathsome gaze traveled over her costumed form. His odious gesture indicated those dratted horsehair-augmented curves she’d given herself where the Almighty had chosen not to bless her himself. Charley’s appreciation was anything but divinely inspired, though. His attention felt despicable. “Men pay good money to see you, Miss Miller. That there’s the reason for it.”

      He meant her figure, plainly. She shuddered with disgust.

      “They pay to see me dance,” she specified. “That’s all.”

      “If you believe that, you’re dumber than your brother.”

      “I’ll thank you to leave Hudson out of this.”

      At her fiery, protective retort, Charley guffawed. “There ain’t no leaving Hudson out of this. It’s all his damn fault.”

      “What is?” Newly alert, she clutched her crutch.

      “You’ll have to ask him about that.” Plainly comfortable in his thuggery, Charley leaned on her porch railing. “Point

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