LITMIR.BIZ

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you think I deserve to hear the rest, the portion you’re hiding from me? Please, I’ve lived with the fear of losing Charity House just as deeply as you have. Maybe more.” A shadow fell over her face. “I have no skills, no real life experiences to speak of.”

      “You have an education. You could teach school, just as you’ve taught me.”

      “Who would hire a woman like me, an infamous madam’s daughter?” Katherine shut her eyes a moment and sighed heavily. “I have nowhere else to go. Now convince me I have nothing to worry about.”

      Taking a deep breath, Laney began her tale, but Katherine cut her off almost before she begun. “The hotel owner witnessed the transaction?”

      “It gets worse.” Laney proceeded to tell her friend the rest.

      When she reached the end, Katherine gaped at her for several long seconds. “He confiscated the money? But why?”

      “He runs a proper hotel, Katherine, something I can’t fault him for.” Dupree, for all his other unsavory characteristics, was clearly a man of integrity. Hard on others, true, but probably just as hard on himself.

      Before she started sympathizing with the cad, she shook her head and continued. “When he saw me speaking with Judge Greene and then witnessed money changing he hands, he thought...well, he thought the worst.”

      “Oh, Laney.”

      “I never admitted to any wrongdoing. Why would I? I’d done nothing improper. But I couldn’t reveal my reason for meeting with Judge Greene, per his adamant request. Nor did I try to dissuade Dupree’s misconception of my character.” And that had been wrong of her, dreadfully wrong. “When he locked me in his office—”

      “He didn’t.”

      “He did.”

      “But I don’t understand.” Katherine shook her head. “How did you get the money back?”

      She touched the reticule, pulled on one of the strings, then the other, toyed with them. The gesture reminded her of the way Dupree had captured her hair around his finger, how he’d stared at it for an endless moment, and how—

      She cut off the rest of her thoughts and focused on answering Katherine’s question. “I had to...um...climb out of his office window, hence the change in attire.”

      “Oh, Laney.”

      She glossed over the part about breaking into his safe, making sure to tone down her use of physical violence to make her final escape from the alleyway.

      “Oh, Laney.”

      “Would you stop saying ‘Oh, Laney’ in that disenchanted tone of yours? You sound like a shocked, elderly aunt instead of a young woman barely twenty years old.”

      “Well, someone needs to think like an adult.” Katherine jumped to her feet and paced through the room. After her second pass, she turned back to face Laney. “Tell me more about this hotel owner.”

      A shudder quickened Laney’s pulse. Dupree had been a formidable foe, far more clever than the banker she’d sparred with this morning. Prescott incited only disdain in her heart. While Dupree called up a mixture of emotions that confused her, and blunted the edge she usually relied on to aid her in sticky situations.

      “I never want to see that man again. He’s judgmental, arrogant and enjoys jumping to conclusions without a shred of evidence.”

      Eyebrows traveling upward, Katherine wrapped her arms across her waist and said, “Not a shred?”

      Laney broke eye contact. “All right, maybe I sent his mind in a few wrong directions.”

      “I read in the Denver Chronicle that he’s impossibly handsome.”

      “You have no idea.”

      Silence fell over them as each considered the events of the evening from their own perspective.

      “Laney?”

      “Hmm?”

      “Do you think Mr. Dupree will leave the situation alone now that you’ve taken the money?”

      “I...” A shudder of apprehension passed through her. “I don’t know.”

      “Will he still try to confront Judge Greene without the evidence in hand?”

      She could lie. She could pretend matters weren’t as dire as they really were. Their long-running friendship deserved better. “He might.”

      Hands trembling, Katherine sank back on the settee. “What are we going to do?”

      “The only thing we can do. We’ll pay off the loan the moment the bank opens in the morning.” The idea swelled within her, creating a sense of peace she hadn’t experienced in days. “That way, no matter what Dupree decides to do next, we’ll already own Charity House. Even if he confronts Judge Greene there won’t be much either man can do at that point.”

      “Other than make trouble for us, in all sorts of awful ways.”

      Laney batted away Katherine’s objection with a flick of her wrist.

      “No. Don’t dismiss my concerns like that. What if Judge Greene teams up with Mr. Dupree, if for no other reason than to save face? What if they try to shut us down for some unknown, yet perfectly legal reason? What if they—”

      “Stop, Katherine. Just stop. We must stay positive, and pray that Dupree will drop the matter now that I’m gone.”

      “You really think he’ll leave us alone?”

      “Yes, as long as he doesn’t find us.”

      Katherine sighed heavily.

      Looking at the clock on the mantel, Laney shoved her worries behind a brilliant smile. “Three hours, Katherine. We only have three short hours before the bank opens for business. By the time Dupree finds me, if he finds me, he’ll be too late.”

      “You seem awfully confident.” Rising to her feet once again, Katherine moved to the window and looked out. “You’re sure he didn’t follow you home.”

      Laney joined her friend at the window. “I was careful to lead him far away from Charity House. If I’m as good as I think I am, which I am, Dupree is looking for me on The Row.”

      “The Row?” Katherine’s mouth dropped. “He thinks you live in a...a...brothel?”

      A slow smile spread across her lips. “That would be my guess.”

      “You’re reckless. That’s what you are.” Although Katherine’s tone held far too much worry for Laney’s peace of mind, a loving glint filled the other woman’s gaze.

      Visibly relaxing, Laney smiled in return. “Perhaps I am more than a little reckless. But thanks to my quick thinking, Marc Dupree is chasing shadows on the other side of town. Now, stop worrying and trust me.” She squeezed Katherine’s arm. “I have matters completely under control.”

      Katherine rubbed her temples. “Why is it every time you say that we end up in worse trouble than before?”

      Chapter Five

      Precisely three hours after arriving home from the Hotel Dupree, Laney bypassed the tellers, skirted along the high railing on her left, then charged toward the bank owner’s private office. Unwilling to wait for a response to her knock, she turned the knob and pressed forward. “I’m here to discuss my loan.”

      Thurston P. Prescott III didn’t bother looking up as he waved his fleshy hand in bored indifference. “There is nothing more to say, Miss O’Connor. My terms stand.”

      Outlaw, she wanted to scream. Cheat. Just yesterday, he’d adopted that same thinly veiled scorn, then shamelessly called in her loan six months early. No warning. No viable explanation.

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